Normally we’d give a brand new site a break for not immediately having an API. When it comes to the rabidly popular FourSquare, which launched in March, developers have been clamoring to build on top of the service. So, today’s launch of the FourSquare API (our FourSquare API profile) is bound to be met with extreme enthusiasm.
One of the most active categories of APIs added to our web service directory was the games category. 3 of the 10 latest APIs were game or toy-related. There’s a new API for accessing 3D data for World of Warcraft, an API for LEGO information, and an API that gets you information on 11,000 game titles from 20 different game platforms. This means there are now 30 game-related APIs in our directory. Here are more details on each of the latest (have fun):
Developer Richard Brundritt has created a new Flight Simulator plugin for Microsoft Virtual Earth (our Virtual Earth API profile) that uses the VE3D map control to provide a very cool user experience.
The goal of HeyZap is to be the “YouTube of casual gaming” by giving site publishers a way to embed more than 6000 casual Flash games into their sites with a single embed code. Their business model (more detail from TechCrunch) is to collect revenue from ads within the games using the MochiAds ad platform and share some of that with developers. The publishers using the code don’t get revenue, but get increased traffic to their sites.
If you like online games and you like programming, the growing number of games with open APIs is a boon. We now over 20 games-related APIs in our directory. The latest entry is for the new API for Spore, the Electronic Arts Maxis game where players can create their own creatures. The API provides developers with the capability to create mashups and applications that access the Spore database of user creations and information about the creators themselves (see our new Spore API profile for details).
Following-up on yesterday’s post on the best new mashups, here is another notable mashup from this past week, yesterday’s Mashup of the Day: Gaiagi Driver. What is it? It’s a mashed-up 3D driving simulator that uses a lot of web APIs across multiple windows to create a unique driving experience. Give it a starting and ending address and it follows the path created by the directions and shows your present position in four different views:
Back in May we reported on a deal struck between Sony and Google to integrate the YouTube API into the PlayStation 3, allowing game developers to let players record videos during gameplay and upload them directly to YouTube.
Demonstrating a new way to build commercial applications on an API, Google’s YouTube team have announced a new partnership with Sony that uses the YouTube API to allow players to record gameplay and upload clips directly to YouTube from their game console
Game application providers Social Gaming Network (SGN) and Zynga have just launched a platform for developers looking to create games that run on the major social networks like Facebook.
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