Red Dead Redemption, Crysis, Mario Kart Wii, and Bulletstorm: what do all of these landmark games have in common? GameSpy Technology.

The company’s suite of online services – from leaderboards to real-time multiplayer, profiles to matchmaking – has been powering PC and console games for over a decade.

Starting tomorrow (Friday 25), its catalogue of development tools will be accessible at no initial cost across all platforms, including iOS, Android, PC, and Mac.

Free for all

"Smart developers are looking at their games as a whole across multiple platforms," said Todd Northcutt, vice president, GameSpy Technology.

"We want to empower everyone creating games to make great online experiences and to build a bigger, better communities regardless of platform, team size or budget. In an industry first, we are making cross-platform services free, with the hope that we can help more folks make better games."

The SDKs include open APIs for player data tracking to gauge game performance and audience engagement, user-generated cloud storage content tools to enable active communities, social network integration, in-game or web-based commerce and competitive matchmaking services.

Futureproof Technology

This Open Initiative also extends to Sony’s forthcoming NGP and any other devices looming on the horizon, and because GameSpy’s toolset is common to all platforms, migrating online features from iOS to NGP, for example, should be fast, smooth, and painless.

Trendy Entertainment was one of the first studios to take advantage of GameSpy’s connected gaming technology via its newly announced program with its multiplatform hit Dungeon Defenders.

And on GameSpy’s booth at GDC next week, Trendy will be showcasing its heroic efforts in Dungeon Defenders, demonstrating seamless co-operative play between gamers on PS3, PC, iPad, and an Android tablet.

Anybody looking to join GameSpy’s development revolution should visit PoweredbyGameSpy.com (from Friday), where, alongside the SDKs, community support, documentation, and in-depth dashboards will be readily available.