The rush to embed games within the various mobile social networking platform is quietly picking up pace.

OpenFeint now claims 17 million unique users, while Scoreloop's recently hooked up with MySpace as its exclusive provider of mobile sociability.

Ngmoco's Plus+ is also picking up steam as the company's online free2play business model will be more fully reflected in the technology in future basis.

Gain a gatekeeper

One interesting move to leverage the power of games from ngmoco and Freeverse has surfaced in the latter's free version of Flick Bowling 2.

It's the first Freeverse game that's free, rather than being a stripped down Lite version, so you get the complete paid game, minus the multiplayer modes. It's ad-supported via Greystripe.

Yet you can only play the free game by either logging into, or registering for, Plus+, which could be an issue of iPod touch users who aren't on a wi-fi network, but will drive up usage figures for Plus+.

Of course, the reaction of gamers when asked to jump through this additional hoop will be critical to whether the model can be rolled out more widely across the Plus+ catalog.

On one hand, it doesn't take long and you're effectively getting a full game for free, while on the other, it's another barrier to entry; something that may be significant in terms of a game that because it's free players might not be particularly committed to.