Having just announced its new white label Core Social and Premium Integration Services, US/German social networking provider Scoreloop has been giving its views on the subject of competition in the market and how it expects to make money on what is a currently a free service for consumers and developers.

We had a chat with CEO Marc Gumpinger to find out more.

Pocket Gamer: Why have you decided to offer Scoreloop as a white label solution?

Marc Gumpinger: This approach is what we've learnt from the market. There are three players who have the chance to win this race - ngmoco/Plus+, OpenFeint and Scoreloop - and we're all pretty much on a par when it comes to features. Scoreloop does player challenges better than the others, while they have more users so each has pros and cons.

But what the big publishers want is a white label solution, especially with their high profile games. They invest a lot of resources into their user interface and brand and they are simply not willing to promote any other brand.

Pocket Gamer: How does the level of integration work?

We have our standard SDK, which works fine for the average game. But for really interesting games, such as Parachute Panic, which was the first game to use Scoreloop Core Social, we had to offer something more.

It has a special art style and user interface thanks to its scribble style, and that was something we couldn't handle using the standard SDK.

The white label solution offers integration on a very deep level. It's not just skinning. It's a dedicated API that can be directly integrated into the game and in that way, we get a lot closer to the end user. This is very important for us, because at the end of the day, with iPhone, we're talking about casual gamers, not FPS fans on the PC.

So is this release is all about added flexibility rather than new features then?

There are some new features too. We've added achievements and more cross-promotions, so overall Scoreloop is a more rounded offering. And alongside this are the integration services so either the developers can integrate the technology themselves or we do it for them.

Do you charge for those services?

It's still free. Our longterm aim in terms of our business model is the virtual goods and the virtual services market. We were the first company to have coins [Scoreloop's in-game currency] and we're working to extend this.

But, at the moment, what we want to do is prove ourselves to the market and show we have a stable product, get into a close relationship with publishers and developers, partner with them, and find the optimal way to integrate virtual goods and services.

I think a longterm partnership is worth this and that means we can offer this technology and services for free.

You'll have to limit the number of games you can support though?

We have a team that's dedicated to integration services but yes, it has limited capabilities so we're focusing on the bigger publishers.

So you won't even be charging when you do the integration work for publishers?

It depends on the whole deal. We try to make it as easy for everyone as possible. The better the game and more interesting the publisher, the more willing and open we are to provide everything.

What other features do you think will help Scoreloop gain a competitive advantage?

We've also changed our licensing agreement, which provides the option for publishers to co-own the data of the people playing their games.

What we're saying to publishers is you can have all the social gaming features of Scoreloop in a white label solution, and if you decide at a later date to switch technologies or do it yourself, you can take your users with you. There's no exit barrier and no reason to wait to see who will win the race.

We are very proud of our product. We believe we have a very stable, very good product and, of course, we will do everything to persuade publishers not to stop using Scoreloop, but we're going to be very open.

With the white label solution, will there be any mention of Scoreloop required in the game?

We would like a mention of Scoreloop on the splash screen as happens with the gaming engines, but we don't require developers to show anything within the game.

You previously mentioned your longterm business model is virtual currency, but at the moment, Apple doesn't really allow this?

There are restrictions from Apple. We are working on ways that are compatible with them but Scoreloop is a cross-platform technology.

The iPhone is a very nice platform but, for us, it's only of the platforms that's interesting and there is a lot of monetisation on those other platforms. We're going to announce some of these soon, so we're not just relying on the iPhone.

How does the Scoreloop coin system work?

The benefit with Scoreloop is we have a competitive virtual currency with two ways to get the coins. You can buy them from our website or win them in challenges and the achievements system.

Will publishers be able to ringfence the coins won in their games?

No. There are no dedicated game coins. All coins from all games are the same. Users don't want these things to be complicated, and we always want to make things easy for the user.

Thanks to Marc for his time.

To find out more about Scoreloop and the Social Core services, check out its website or follow its Twitterfeed.

Alternatively you can email it at partnerships [at] scoreloop [dot] com.