Game Center is one of the great features of iOS (iPad, iPhone, iPod) or OS X. However, many users find Game Center notifications, prompts and greetings annoying. When you open Game Center, you can sign in using your Apple ID. It seems that once signed into Game Center, there is no way to completely disable it. However, you can disable your Game Center account. You have a few options:
- The first option is disabling your Game Center Account. This way you can remove all of your account info. To do this, launch the Game Center, tap Me > Account: > View Account. Turn off your Public Profile. Then tap your verified Email and select “Remove Email from Account.” You may also want to change your username to something else. After that, sign out of Game Center by tapping Me > Account: > Sign Out.
- The option described above will remove your public profile and email addresses. But when you launch a game, a Game Center will still show up asking you to sign in. You can disable Game Center notifications. To do so tap “Settings” and select “Notifications.” Find Game Center and turn off the Notification Center for Game Center. (related: iPod, iPad and iPhone Notifications: What you Need to Know)
- Both options described above will not eliminate the sign in pop up when you launch a game. Every time when you open a game, Game Center will ask you to sign in. To get rid of this, first sign out of your Game Center as described above. Launch a game and when Game Center welcome popup shows up, tap cancel. Perform this step three times meaning launch a game and tap cancel once the Game Center Welcome popup shows. After 3 times, a new pop-up will come up asking if you want to disable Game Center, then simply tap disable. Now you will not see any pop ups or other notifications.
Note 1: you can also disable Multiplayer games and Adding Friends in Game Center by turning on restrictions. To do that simply tap Settings > General > Restrictions. (related: How to Setup Parental Controls)
Note 2: Game Center is part of the iOS software and thus cannot be removed.
December 2, 2012 at 12:29 PM
Sadly this does not work for me. I have lost count of how many times I have disabled Game Center after hitting cancel 3 times, but it just keeps popping up anyway. Sigh…
December 6, 2012 at 8:43 AM
I agree with you. The game center is annoying. I am thinking to change my mobile. Sigh…
December 20, 2012 at 5:05 AM
It does work but only after the first two steps mentioned above , otherwise you can cancel forever and it comes back
A great relief to be rid of it thanks
January 27, 2013 at 1:23 PM
It worked for me. I don’t care that the icon is still there, but I don’t get the prompts every time I play a game now. Thank you!
December 14, 2012 at 2:22 AM
Me too – I have cancelled / declined / closed / cancelled game centre dozens of times, and it keeps popping up. Getting rid of my iPhone as a result; why do Apple have to ruin a perfectly good device? *sigh*
December 27, 2012 at 12:35 PM
Not worked for me
i have an ipod 4th generation 32 kb andthis won’t work!!! I’ve wanted an ipod mainly for games and on my friends 4th generations i have never seen game center pop up! This is ridiculous! I have tried everything!!!! (Sorry to sound rude but I’m furious)
December 30, 2012 at 6:27 PM
disablint the game center does not work. Apple needs to remove this from the OS
January 6, 2013 at 8:02 AM
I’ve found that after disabling notification and I download apps from the App Store it restarts the Game Center.
January 13, 2013 at 1:07 PM
Same here. No matter what I do, it keeps enabling itself!
February 8, 2013 at 9:22 AM
Yes, this is why it seems to work for some people and not others. If you sign into your apple account for any reason, like to purchase an app, you are automatically signed back into Game Center as well, so that you have to go through the whole disabling process again.
On older ios versions, there was a way to disable it through parental controls. Sadly they’ve closed that “loophole”… To many grown ups thinking they have the right to control their own social networking as well as their kids’.
February 24, 2013 at 5:42 AM
I’ve figured it out! You need a second Apple ID just for Game Center:
1. Go to the sign in page for GC (sign out first if you need to – you can’t change the ID or email you are signed in with from the account page within Game Center).
2. If you have an existing second ID, sign in with that.
3. If you don’t already have multiple ID’s, click on “Create an Apple ID” and go through the process using a different email from your main Apple ID.
4. Sign out of Game Center.
5. When you are asked to sign in again when you start your game, select cancel 3 times and then disable.
6. Never look at it again.
This will not change the default Apple ID you are using for other Apple services, so you can make purchases from iTunes or the App Store with your regular ID and password, and it will not log you into Game Center. This has been working for me for a while now, no problems.
February 24, 2013 at 1:25 PM
The problem is that some games are linked to your ID. By logging out and changing ID, you lose whatever progress you’ve made… I was unable to retrieve the (2 years of) progress by re-entering old ID – thanks
February 24, 2013 at 1:28 PM
I retract that last comment, logging a few times more fixed it
January 10, 2013 at 9:46 AM
I was trying to get rid of it so I could make a new gamecenter with my same apple ID. But it still isn’t working…
January 15, 2013 at 2:47 AM
Worked perfectly on my iPhone 4S. Thanx a lot.
January 24, 2013 at 11:28 AM
Not effective. Following all steps above has done nothing to curtail log-in requests from game center. I’d probably be less perturbed by it if wasn’t so damn laggy (seriously, it takes too much time for it load).
I don’t care what the “braintrusts” over in Cupertino say, this Game Center app is nasty bit of malware that the manufacturer will not even allow you to delete.
Think different, my ass.
February 4, 2013 at 3:10 AM
عايشه محمد
February 4, 2013 at 3:11 AM
عايشه انا امون
February 12, 2013 at 6:55 PM
I cannot go pass the step “..Then tap your verified Email and select “Remove Email from Account.” I tap my apple ID and a new screen opened up for me to edit the information. There was no ‘remove Email from Account’ message.
February 14, 2013 at 3:11 AM
THANK YOU THANK YOU
I finally got rid of this annoying app!
JAY!
February 14, 2013 at 10:03 AM
So far so good, thanks!
February 21, 2013 at 12:19 PM
Game Center is part of the iOS software and thus cannot be removed” – that is the real problem. nothing else works! Really annoying. whoever genius thought it would be s good idea to add GC to be part of the original sortware should be fired.
February 24, 2013 at 2:18 AM
I turned on Restrictions under the General tab & then scrolled down to Game Center. Turned both to On.
This works!
March 5, 2013 at 8:16 AM
Thank you SO much… this was driving me crazy and my kids too!
March 11, 2013 at 8:36 PM
Disabling Game Center can only be temporary. You get logged back in automatically when you purchase any app or even when you check your apple id in settings under the iTunes / Applestore menu. It would appear that once you give you apple id password for things totally unrelated to Game Center, iOS 6.1 considers that an opportunity to log you back in without your knowledge and reenable it if you had previously disabled it. Also any changes of settings related to Game Center under settings will cause the login prompt to start reappearing. At this point Apple does not seem aware of these hidden features and there seem to be no plan to change this.
March 15, 2013 at 3:53 PM
Fuck. I am going to sue game center. It doesn’t fucking work… and it slows down my device.
March 24, 2013 at 11:12 PM
It worked for me. Just follow all the steps correctly.
March 26, 2013 at 6:03 PM
I’ve disabled this ducking annoyance so many times! And still pops up! Why apple calls this a great feature is beyond me, it’s not even feature! It’s a fucking annoyance, they should call it a great annoyance! Why apple won’t give us control to delete shit like this from our phones is also annoying! Fuck you apple!
March 27, 2013 at 4:43 PM
this is the worst app that Apple has for the Apple Iphones, everyone that has one needs to make a complaint to Apple to get rid of this app.
March 30, 2013 at 6:18 AM
what i did was this.
since my iPhone is jailbreaked i opened iFile and whent into the Applications folder and looked up “Game Center~iphone.app” and “GameCenterUIService.app” and renamed both by adding a – like this “Game Center~iphone.app-” “GameCenterUIService.app-” and respringed my device, now the GS isnt poping up when playing games, its app icon doesnt even show up on the device anymore
im sure apple done like this but was the only way for me to get rid of that spamming crap app
April 4, 2013 at 6:38 PM
Sad enough i decided to create a account on game Center so its will stop is stupid thing and the nickname “Fuck Game Center” is already taken. Nuff said
April 16, 2013 at 10:40 AM
Works as advertised, IF you follow the steps!!! Saved me from sending Apple a nastygram! Thanks! (iPad Mini iOS 6.1.3) BTW any combination of the words “FUCK and Game Center or GC” in the nickname is already taken unfortunately, if that tells you a little something about GC.
April 20, 2013 at 7:44 PM
Worked like a charm for me. Thanks!
April 26, 2013 at 12:22 AM
Hey bless you! I apply earbuds out and about because on their portability, even though I prefer over your ear.