@Murtaza I agree with some of what you're saying with regards the social platform "efforts" of Game Center, that stuff was a bad joke. Like Apple Radio is to Apple Music, it was a hodgepodge of ideas in its first incantations. Trying to be all things to all people and never succeeding at being anything other than a nonsensical contrivance in an era when social networking had already been solved.
However, the parts of Game Center that will probably last forever, and very logical uses of iCloud, are leaderboards, achievements and game sync. This is the part they should have focused on from the beginning, but got carried away with the idea of being a social network, as well. Which was silly.
I'm asking about Game Center here, precisely because of the OP's title, Leaderboards.
Game Center's ability to easily add leaderboards, achievements and game sync are all valuable facilities that will probably see Game Center go on forever, and Apple probably forever regret this horrible name and the former attempt at being a social network for games.
In the cold hard light of 2017 we can see that there was only ever going to be one social network winner, but back when they were planning Game Center there was more perceived chance of fragmentation. It looked, for a while, like social networks might form around interests and activities. Your Hub is a similar "bet", to some extent.
It's all about Facebook/Instagram now. Nothing else matters, unfortunately.
However, high scores tables, achievements and game sync all require a database online, for which Game Center's iCloud usage is still the best option on iOS, and probably always will be. Replays and Game Streaming... probably Twitch and Youtube will battle this out, unless Apple figures out how to make an incredibly compelling option.
// Side note, just about every iOS device of the last 2 years has more than enough horsepower to play almost any game AND record itself. Apple's screen video recording is a little lossy, but it's INCREDIBLY efficient, and perfect for streaming.
@Hamed it's the polling and performance monitoring that running the screen recorder does that gives cocos2D the space it needs to perform consistently, and "buries" the bug at the core of cocos2D.
Where the leaderboards will become increasingly useful is iMessage micro/mini advertising games.
And this is where the potentially low profile/size of cocos2D/hyperPad games (without all those ad things you bundle in) can be a boon to that industry.
And it's also iMessage games where you can target your original assumed audiences. That's where they all are, that's how they're all communicating when not using Facebook/Instagram.
Micro-apps/games have become a phenomenon within WeChat in China, which Apple is aping (very closely) with iMessage. Every year imessage looks more and more like WeChat.
There's a massive industry being built around games and interactive ad experiences for WeChat integration, and Apple has provided the same degree of access for native games in iMessage, and given iMessage its own store. Which means iMessage games and apps are native, and Apple users have a much higher expectation of app experience within iMessage than HTML game players in WeChat.
Your little "engine that could" is perfectly suited to be tweaked for targeting this market because it's performant and light.
What matters in Game Center (sync, achievements and leaderboards) is one of those tweaks. The other is iMessage App/Game integration, and the extensions facility.
