Developer tools company appMobi announced a public beta of playMobi, which it describes as a cross-platform HTML5 based game development, deployment and monetisation SDK.

The technology offers programmers an “elegant JavaScript API solution” for issues such as user authentication, in-game payments, social player engagement, scoring and leaderboard management. The core technology is based on TapJs, which was acquired by appMobi in 2011.

The company said that in an industry “first,” playMobi enables cross-platform in-app purchasing with its 1Touch in-app payment system, removing a “huge headache” for developers looking to make money with games. When a player makes a purchase, the platform automatically completes the transaction using the correct in-app purchase backend system – iTunes for iOS, Google Payments for Android, Facebook Credits for Facebook, or PayPal.

appMobi also said that playMobi supports multi-device and multi-platform social game play, including HTML5 web-based games, Facebook games, and iOS and Android hybrid games created with PhoneGap or appMobi. It also includes social gaming tools that developers can use to increase the “stickiness” of games, including Facebook Connect integration.

Additionally, playMobi is said to offer developers “important new insight” into how HTML5 games are being played, with detailed analytics highlighting “trouble spots or levels that are too easy.” It can also enable rules-based checks on posted scores, “because high-score cheating is an issue on the open web.”

Sam Abadir, CTO of appMobi, said: “With a single JavaScript API, playMobi gives HTML5 game developers all the tools they need to create interesting and socially engaging games that run on iOS, Android and Facebook platforms.”