Mobile "play by email" network basics, send game move via server

I want to make a mobile network game, the player does his round and sends it to a server. The opponent gets a push note and downloads the moves his friend did. Turned based, the two don’t need to be connected at the same time.

  1. What is the proper name of this network type?
  2. Is there any company that sells this type of service so I don’t need my own server/server code?
  3. If I need to setup my own server, is there any good solutions out there - I can guess the safety from hackers is the hard part.

-I would prefer to have a solution that work with both iOS and Android.

-I’ve done peer to peer network games, so I understand that part.

This is what Ive manage to figure out so far:

Name

I’ve seen people call it “Turn-based multiplayer” and “turn by turn multiplayer”. I also see some call it “push note gaming”, but that’s not so fitting because they can be played with push notes turned off.

Solutions

  • Apparently the iOS game center already has some free server service. It does only work with apple of course. No idea what the limits are on traffic and storage though.

  • Google Play has some solution that should works with both iOS and Android (and PC). Still trying to figure out what the costs are. Limits: The stored data from one turn must be 128kB or less.

  • There are some downloadable solutions in the Asset Store for both Game Center and Google Play. But most of them seem a bit incomplete in way or another.