Beginning iOS Game Center and Game Kit: For iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

Using Your Own Server (Hosted Matches)

Under normal circumstances, Game Center will host your match for you; however, Apple has provided a technique for implementing your own server to host a match. This approach is called a “hosted match,” and can be implemented in any app to add increased flexibility to Game Center-based multiplayer networking.

When using Game Center to host a match, every device that is connecting to that match creates an instance of GKMatch. The GKMatch class does all the legwork of connecting, handshaking, sending and receiving data, and handling errors. However, there are times when you will need to implement your own server, most notably if you want to allow more than four people to connect to a single match at a time. ...