Android :: Sharing Data Between Users

I'm writing a game that includes an editor for users to create their own levels. I'd like players to be able to share the levels they've created with other players. I'm trying to figure out the best way of implementing that, and hoping for any advice on the subject.

One obvious option is to set up a server for sharing levels. The game would connect directly to the server to let players share their creations or download levels created by other players. This provides seamless integration and a good user experience, but I'd really prefer not to use this approach. For one thing, I don't want the cost and responsibility of setting up and maintaining the server. And I would be taking on a basically unlimited obligation; otherwise, if I decided to shut down the server a few years from now, the game would suddenly lose a large part of its value.

Another idea I had is to use the Android Market as the way to distribute sets of levels. That way, Google is taking care of running the server for me. Clearly there are programs that work this way, since I've seen lots of themes and expansion packs for particular applications in the Market. While this could work, I'm not very happy with it. Asking an ordinary user to sign up for a developer account on the Market and learn how to post files through it is unreasonable, not to mention they would have to pay $25.

The approach I'm currently leaning toward is allowing levels to be exported as ordinary files. People could then just email them to each other, post them on any website they wanted, etc. Ideally I would want to set up a file type association so they could simply open an email attachment or click a link in the web browser, and my game would automatically be launched to import it. I haven't yet looked into whether that's possible.