I noticed mention of pubnub in the latest email newsletter. I looked into this a few months back when it was popping up in a few forum posts. I would like to throw my thoughts out there and anyone who wants to share, please do. I could be completely off base.

I am all down with multiplayer and think it's a great addition to a game if the design fits it. I have a few ideas myself and an app nearing completion that would love some internet multiplayer.

For me, using any 3rd party solution is to save time, money and/or offer a service you just can't provide on your own. Corona is the perfect example of this. It saves plenty of time, money and now as it grows and makes partnerships, it will offer services I may not be able to get alone.

I've made simple multiplayer internet games, 12 or so years ago with old fashioned sockets. Sending and receiving data across the internet is well documented and free. So for strictly playing a game over the internet this feels very archaic in approach. Using a store & forward, client/server system for multiplayer is like sending snail mail to tell a friend you will meet them at 8:30 rather then just sending a free email.

Another side of this is it's a metered service. I know not every game is going to be cracked. However what if you have a game using this service and it does get cracked. You are essentially paying for a thief to enjoy multiplayer in your game. If it's a free game, how many million downloads can your wallet take before the service cost is higher than your ad or microtransactions revenues?

Ultimately I look with much hope to Openfeint's multiplayer whenever it makes its way out of private beta and if/when Ansca incorporates it into Corona. They have the perfect matchmaking platform already in place. I just hope they don't attempt to gouge the developer to use the functionality. I am fine paying to support multiplayer matchmaking in a game. I just feel for apps this technology is a step backwards and your going to pay way too much for it.

I am curious what others think.

Stephen

Stephen,

Thank you for asking about this. Using Corona SDK Multiplayer PubNub is key to making a rock solid multiplayer game. Here is why. You are making a mobile game that is going to be hugely popular with millions of app downloads. You do not want or you may lack a socket dev team to build, farm and maintain a cloud capable of millions of users. PubNub powers WoW-scale audiences as a service for you to make fast multiplayer games easily with two function calls (Send/Receive) (Publish/Subscribe).

Also you may be building a game that will fit a small indie niche market. PubNub offers a free branded option: http://www.pubnub.com/price#branding

Your game is going to be awesome with multiplayer capabilities and PubNub offers you choices to make your game great easily.

- PubNub Team

When I try to build Mathmania, a PubNub demo included with the Corona SDK, for an iphone install nothing happens.
The Corona Simulator locks up with "connecting to server".
It works fine in the simulator and actually does updates to the server.
An install project is written with a 0 and a line through it, meaning a unsuccessful compiling. Any idea what is going wrong?

I have the same problem, I also tried to put in the api keys but no build ?

Nobody ?

The demo is included in the Corona SDK download but it
will not build, why not? Do I have to pay $1,125 to get it working?