Along with Amazon’s launch of its latest Kindle Fire tablet line, the e-commerce company also has a major gaming oriented feature in the works. GameCircle, launched in July this year, is basically a developer toolset that enables game publishers and developers to offer features like achievement tracking, leaderboards, game sync and social networking.

Amazon has recently published a sneak peek at GameCircle, highlighting these features, and how both users and developers can benefit from the platform. Here are a few highlights:

Games Library

New games category now appears as the first category listed in the Kindle’s app store navigation. Amazon says gaming is among the most popular activities on the Kindle Fire, and so they’re prioritizing games. This tab displays the most recently played games first, and also offers a view of friends, achievements and the leaderboard before starting a game. Amazon says certain games have already been integrated into GameCircle: Jetpack Joyride, Where’s my Perry?, Skylanders Cloud Patrol and Temple Run.

GameCircle-enabled games also get their own pages, which include a summary page, friends, achievements and leaderboards.

Social Gaming

Amazon also wants to highlight the social aspect of gaming with GameCircle. Kindle Fire users can connect with other GameCircle players. Users can also import their Facebook friends for score comparisons and competition. A friend-to-friend comparison page can also compare a user’s achievements and scores against another individual user.

Amazon is marketing GameCircle at both gamers and developers alike. Given that the Kindle Fire platform is banking on content downloads and sales to drive business and popularity, it seems Amazon has got it right on the mark in focusing on the social aspect of gaming.

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