While many developers have talked about tracking the skills of gamers on consoles that don't offer features like Xbox 360's highly addictive achievements, few have tried. Today, GameStrata attempts to do the impossible by letting gamers monitor their online ranks, data about their in-game abilities and share those scores with friends on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii or PC. Of course, the GameStrata system also integrates achievements from third-party systems, like Xbox 360 Achievements, into each member's "Q Score."

Starting out small but with a tactical strike, the service opened with support for EA's Battlefield 2, Capcom's Lost Planet, Sega's Universe at War, Activision's Guitar Hero III and Sega's upcoming game The Club.

Considering that GameStrata already has a history with developing Facebook applications, members will find tools that allow them to post and share their scores through social networking sites too.

"Whether you are playing a simple, casual game or a really immersive first person shooter, everyone wants to know where they rank," said Lance Smith, CEO of GameStrata. "You may be surprised to see your stats, but you will likely be even more surprised to see how you stack up against your friends!"

Guilds and other groups also get an option to manage a clan site that monitors members' accomplishments through a daily feed and offers tools to challenge competitors to matches.

Rather than experiencing what GameStrata had to offer, GameDaily BIZ asked the team and its co-founder, Barry Dorf some questions about what players can expect from the service.

GameDaily BIZ: How would you describe your company's product in 60 seconds?

Barry Dorf: GameStrata is the premier provider of online tools and statistical data for gamers and game publishers. GameStrata provides leaderboards, player rankings, and persistent, comprehensive statistics for popular online games, allowing players to track their progress and compare their performance in games on a variety of platforms. Current members can use the site's broad array of game-tracking tools to analyze their own skills, and share their stats with friends and competitors. More than just keeping score, the extensive data analyses of GameStrata track every aspect of the game, providing statistics for accuracy, a user's favorite weapon, kills scored on specific classes, and much more. Coupled with this core statistical competency, GameStrata offers rich community features, forums, user-provided game tips and advice, and advanced clan management for members who want to keep track of their friends' latest accomplishments with a daily clan news feed. Whether a gamer's competition is simply defined as a circle of close friends or if it's defined as the entire world, GameStrata will tell them where they rank among their most feared competitors and provide them with the tools to achieve better gaming results.

BIZ: GameStrata has created apps for Facebook and based on what we've seen, the GameStrata site experience feels decidedly like Facebook with a list of updates. Does this mean that GameStrata is an open system that would allow for developers to create applications? Or will there be more GameStrata applets that will be made available to Facebook users?

Dorf: We aren't an open platform at this time but we are certainly interested in that direction. There has been a lot of innovation and creativity as a result of open social platforms and it's tough to not address it. First, we need to focus on our own platform and go from there. But we definitely have the flexibility to support these endeavors. And there will definitely be more Facebook and broad-based social networking applications!

BIZ: So it looks like stats pages for individual games like Lost Planet track a player's online gaming history. With solo game achievements being added to the XBL service, any hopes to track achievements that the player might have missed along the way in a stats-like application/page?

Dorf: If Capcom wanted to make sure the users had that information around their game, then yes we would build that out. It is important to be as flexible as you can around publisher information, but also as detailed as you can. If one of our partners gave us the freedom, then yes we would track achievements skipped, and message that to the user.

BIZ: So GamerQ points appear to be a way to add Xbox 360-like achievements to the games on other platforms (Wii, PC, PS3). Since other platforms don't have such a "pseudo-qualitative" metric to measure ability, how do you assign points to things you do on other items?

Dorf: It is easy to award points for things a user does on our site, like answer a question or add a friend, but those other platforms offer another level of depth that is very exciting. We can offer points to users who move up on a leaderboard, pass their friends, get achievements (which we define), but we really like the possibilities around clan challenges, and being able to wager those points against each other. Maybe even trade those points in for something cool.

BIZ: Since you're kicking off with support for only four games, we'd assume that you're working with development teams or game stat streams to get numbers on each gamer's playtime. How hard is it to get developers to add support for GameStrata to their games?

Dorf: First let us clarify that while we are launching with four games, we have two more games coming online in the next several weeks, and we are most excited about The Club from Sega, with support around Xbox, PC and PS3.
Developers really seem to want this level of support and data from their games; it's just a matter of working through the technical issues and getting going. A lot of our meetings have been late in the development cycle, which makes it a bit difficult to change the current plan. What became exciting to us was when publishers begin to talk about patching their games for additional stat support, or making sure future versions of the game integrated with us at an alpha stage. We have a lot of experience under our belt in working directly with publishers and the platform guys. Having knowledge of how the Xbox platform works is a great asset for our partners. As a result, the integration for stats support has become much more seamless for the publisher and will continue to do so.

BIZ: Knowing that you helped create EA's Fantasy Football experience and that you're a known football and sports junkie, why not attack big fish games like Madden to make an impact?

Dorf: As much as I love sports and Madden, the initial key game for me was Battlefield 2, and a way to show what I did well inside the game. I was not a great BF2 player, but boy could I capture flags. We also think we made a stronger impact with going away from sports games at launch and showcasing other genres. We will start to explore adding sports games after we get our initial titles launched.

BIZ: Since Xbox Live really rules the online console service world, GameStrata might help SCEA and Sony create a better service offering for their games. Given both company's close proximity to GameStrata's HQ, are you talking to them yet?

Dorf: We are already collecting data for Guitar Hero III on the PS3, which is being provided by Red Octane. Likewise, we are working on support via a few publishers for some upcoming PS3 titles. Both of these are examples of the type of support, which is possible on Sony's platform. As for SCEA and Sony, we won't comment on this other than to say we are glad to be so close to Foster City.

BIZ: How big is the company so far? What other things can gamers expect from GameStrata?

Dorf: We are eight [employees] right now, and looking to grow in the next few months. You can expect GameStrata to change the way gamers AND publishers think about statistics!