Patent ID: 8016677

Claim:
A system for sharing information from game applications among users, comprising: a service configured to receive configuration information for a plurality of game applications of differing type from a plurality of game developers, the configuration information conforming to a common schema and describing achievements for said plurality of game applications, the achievements including a description of the achievement and a trophy image, and wherein said achievements are earned by users of the plurality of game applications by playing said plurality of game applications, the achievements including pre-defined achievements and game-specific achievements, pre-defined achievements being derived from default values of the common schema to be common to each of the game applications, game-specific achievements not being common to each of the game applications; the service configured to receive information from the plurality of game applications of differing type executing on network-connected client computers; said service configured to determine, based on the configuration information, that the information received from the plurality of game applications of differing type executing on the remote computer systems is indicative of achievements; said service configured to store said information from the plurality of game applications of differing type on a network-accessible server as part of user profiles for said users, wherein said achievements are organized within the stored user profiles on a game-by-game basis, and said service configured to transmit user profiles comprising said achievements organized within the stored user profiles on a game-by-game basis to the network-connected client computers of a community of users of said service, wherein first profile information for a first user and second profile information for a second user are used to match the first user and the second user for a play of a first game, the first profile information being based at least partly on one or more plays of one or more first other games by the first user, the second profile information being based at least partly on one or more plays of one or more second other games by the second user, the play of the first game being the first play of the first game by the first user, and the play of the first game being the first play of the first game by the second user, wherein one or more of the first other games are different and distinct from the first game and wherein one or more of the second other games are different and distinct from the first game.