How can I turn off the gamed service or more generally, any service?

Question

Yeah, bought a Macbook Retina, come from a Linux background where this stuff is usually a question of removing via the package manager.

Anyhow, I don't play games on this, it's purely for business/development. But I keep seeing this gamed process that came down with the Mavericks update trying to phone home.

Apart from software update, I don't really want any process phoning home, especially when I paid 2G for the damned thing.

Anyhow, anyone know how I can disable/uninstall/kill this process for good?

I didn't want to mess with the binary but turning off all settings in System Preferences>Notifications stopped the final phone homes. — toxaq, Feb 08 '16 at 06:28

binarybob · Answer 1 · 2014-04-27T21:43:58.833

16

Specifically for the gamed service, the following command in one of the posts about a similar topic on the Apple Support Communities worked for me, without any need to modify plists or rename files:

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.gamed disabled -bool true

Changing "true" back to "false" will re-enable it, although I've not tried it.

edited Apr 27 '14 at 21:43

answered Apr 27 '14 at 19:18

binarybob

9,875

looks good, lets see if apple honor the setting. – picsolve_binarytemple Apr 29 '14 at 08:38
10

You can also run launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.gamed.plist. It modifies /var/db/launchd.db/com.apple.launchd.peruser.$UID/overrides.plist, which has precedence over the Disabled key. – Lri Sep 19 '14 at 07:43
3

For all of you who find this and will try to use this method on El Capitan, you might be disappointed. I just did the launchctl unload method and that works even on El Capitan. – Dalibor Filus Apr 30 '16 at 10:22
Alas, SIP seems to prevent both the defaults and the launchctl method of gamed-disabling on Sierra (as of 10.12.6 -- though I think the launchctl method may have worked on 10.12.5 and before). – jhfrontz Jul 17 '18 at 15:35

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 10 '13 at 06:17

2

The first thing to do is open the damn thing and log out of Game Center, and delete whatever it still filled in.

answered Nov 10 '13 at 06:17

Zo219

2,651

I've never even signed in to the Game Center – picsolve_binarytemple Nov 10 '13 at 21:32
Yeah, it lives at: /System/Library/Frameworks/GameKit.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/gamed – picsolve_binarytemple Nov 10 '13 at 21:40
tried using launchctl as described in http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/105892/disable-services-in-osx-services-msc – picsolve_binarytemple Nov 10 '13 at 21:41
But it doesn't show up in the process list. – picsolve_binarytemple Nov 10 '13 at 21:41
@picsolve_binarytemple it won't it is a daemon and so only runs when something ttys to call it – mmmmmm Jan 10 '14 at 00:40
Even if you are not signed in, the gamed process still tries to contact whatever IP. – Dalibor Filus Apr 30 '16 at 10:21

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 20 '16 at 19:30

2

I'm not sure how to completely disable the process but I've set up Little Snitch to disallow incoming / outgoing processes associated with the Game Center. It's a useful little program.

answered Jun 20 '16 at 19:30

user189065

36
1

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited Jan 10 '14 at 00:45

0

This is a cheap hack:

sudo mv /System/Library/Frameworks/GameKit.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/gamed /System/Library/Frameworks/GameKit.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/gamed.inactive

edited Jan 10 '14 at 00:45

Jawa

2,484

answered Jan 09 '14 at 23:57

steve

1

Yeah, that seems to be about the only way to disable that crap. I haven't tried it yet (just blocking it's communication using a firewall) but that seems the only way to turn it off. – picsolve_binarytemple Jan 11 '14 at 12:17
Cannot do that on OS X El Capitan (without system protection disabled). The launchctl way can be done though. – Dalibor Filus Apr 30 '16 at 10:21

score 0 · Answer 5 · edited Jun 01 '15 at 12:34

0

In Yosemite 10.10.3 the gamed process can be found in /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/GameCenterFoundation.framework/Versions/A/gamed.

I needed to rename the process to get rid of it, the defaults write and unload suggestions didn't work.

edited Jun 01 '15 at 12:34

Jawa

2,484

answered Jun 01 '15 at 11:06

hepabolu

151

See other answers - how does this differ? – mmmmmm Jun 01 '15 at 11:34
@Mark game kit -> GCF – bmike Jun 01 '15 at 11:52

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Oct 09 '16 at 09:27

0

Apple really wants this service to run:

# pwd
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/GameCenterFoundation.framework/Versions/A
# mv gamed gamed.disabled
mv: rename gamed to gamed.disabled: Operation not permitted
# rm gamed
override rwxr-xr-x  root/wheel restricted,compressed for gamed? y
rm: gamed: Operation not permitted
# ls -l gamed
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  4430368 Jul  9 04:51 gamed

This was on El Capitan 10.11.6

answered Oct 09 '16 at 09:27

G.Helland

1

1

It's probably SIP protected – Tetsujin Oct 09 '16 at 10:34

How can I turn off the gamed service or more generally, any service?

6 Answers6