Game Center is an online multiplayer social gaming network released by Apple. It allows users to invite friends to play a game, start a multiplayer game through matchmaking, track their achievements, and compare their high scores on a leader board. Game Center was originally announced on April 8, 2010, and became publicly available with the release of iOS 4 on September 8 of that year. With a major update to the service in October 2011, it is officially available for iOS devices capable of running iOS 4.2 or later. The service now comes standard with the current iOS.

On February 16, 2012 it was announced by Apple that Game Center would be integrated into the latest version of Mac OS X, Mountain Lion, set for a summer 2012 release.

Gaming became a major part of the iOS platform when Apple launched the App Store on July 10, 2008. Unlike the console systems that were currently on the market, Apple had no unified multiplayer and social system for their platform. This gap was soon filled by third parties, such as, OpenFeint, Plus+, AGON Online and Scoreloop. These third parties had control over the online gaming environment and with multiple third parties involved, it left a non-unified experience.