Gameloft slashes Android investment

By Ellie Gibson Published 23 November, 2009

iPhone games 400 times more popular.

Mobile games company Gameloft is reducing the amount of money invested in developing titles for Google's Android platform.

Speaking to Reuters, finance director Alexandre de Rochefort said, "We have significantly cut our investment in Android platform, just like... Many others."

Apparently part of the problem is the Android's application store just can't match up to its biggest competitor. "It is not as neatly done as on the iPhone," de Rochefort said. "Google has not been very good to entice customers to actually buy products. On Android nobody is making significant revenue."

"We are selling 400 times more games on iPhone than on Android," he added. During the last financial quarter, iPhone games accounted for 13 per cent of Gameloft's revenue. No figure was given for Android games, but presumably it was whatever one four-hundredth of 13 per cent is.

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (21) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • wayneh #1 2 years ago

    Two things they need to look at if they want to sell their games on Android.

    1) Quality

    2) Pricing

    Both are lacking at the moment hence they are not selling.

  • Malek86 #2 2 years ago

    @wayneh: I'm pretty sure they're lacking those even in their iPhone games, and still sell. Problem is, obviously Android is not quite widespread yet.

  • Floppy #3 2 years ago

    It does stand to reason that the Android application store is possible clunky and undersubscribed, as it's pretty new. The AppStore has been around for 2-3 years now. Any word on their stance for supporting Nokia's OVI Store? I don't personally have a Nokia, but it stands to reason that will also have less throughput than the AppStore.

    Edit: I stand corrected @lord, thanks for clarifying. Although, there are far more iPhones out there than Android ones at the moment, so also makes sense that its more popular. That and there's the unknown as to which current Android phones will be permitted to upgrade to Android v2 by the phone's operators; which is crazy in itself.
    Edited by 1 at 23/11/09 @ 10:43

  • ignatiusjreilly #4 2 years ago

    I see 4 main issues here:

    - Google's market on 1.5 Android is pretty poor. There's no search function and lots of countries have no way of actually buying paid apps.

    - There's no desktop interface for the market. All marjet activity must be done on the phone, and that's still a bit awkward.

    - There's big competition to paid apps - free ones, and they are generally of quite a high standard on Android. Loots of Android users are also Google users that have become used to quality applications for nothing.

    - The Android hardware is still lacking. None of the Android phones have so far been that impressive, nor that appealing to non-geek people, although I think that's set to change with upcoming phones like the Droid/Milestone, Sony Experia X10 and HTC Dragon.

  • Shinetop #5 2 years ago

    But I thought Android was going to destroy the competition because everything Google does is an instant winner? How can this be?

  • penhalion #6 2 years ago

    The problem with the android market can be summed up in a single word GOOGLE.

    They rarely if ever finish anything they start (bit like garage games and their blasted game engines). If google invested a few months into tidying their app store, giving it a prominant place on their search engine site (a place billions pass through every frikkin' day for god sake) and did even a minimum of search result screen plugging. Their store would already have caught up to apples. Instead the so called geniuses at google can't manage to come up with this two frakkin' minute idea after a whole year!

  • ignatiusjreilly #7 2 years ago

    @MrED209

    At the moment every Android screen has the same screen resolution and very similar hardware specs. That is of course set to change but it hasn't so far.

    There is more difference between the original iPhone and the iPhone 3GS than there is between any of the Android devices.

    @penhalion

    Google has made big improvements to the store with Android 2.0. The only thing I think it's missing now is a desktop client that allows you to search for and buy apps directly from your PC.

  • rudedudejude #8 2 years ago

    haha retards, the next version features a complete market overhaul!

  • penhalion #9 2 years ago

    @ignatiusjreilly

    Er that's pretty much what I just said. Google is a search company and yet there is no android search site available on google! It's the first thing they should have done.

    @MrED209

    Android is an operating system. Anything written to work for it will work with every android handset just like apples stuff will work with every iphone, new or old (operating system version permitting). So that's never been an issue with Android apps.

  • faselei #10 2 years ago

    Methinks they are being impatient. Android. Needs a littlee more time. Bit its open, cross platform, and cheaper, with the first payg models coming out.

  • Floppy #11 2 years ago

    I wonder if EG are going to be unbiased and forward thinking, and create an 'Eurogamer on Android' app, like the iPhone one they're advertising on the site's banner ad today ;)

  • Liam64 #12 2 years ago

    0.000325%

  • ignatiusjreilly #13 2 years ago

    EG didn't create that app anyway, it was a user.

    If someone creates an app for Android, I'm sure they'd be happy to promote it.

    [link url=http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=Lj-6vTNe1f8
    ]http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=Lj-6vTNe1f8
    [/link]

  • EvilBob_leeds #14 2 years ago

    @penhalion

    Oh no it isn't. I'm pretty active in the Android on HTC Polaris project (o2 orbit 2 here in the UK) and frankly a lot of the stuff in the market place is designed to run at the res of the G1 / HTC Magic and looks pretty cack at the 240*320 I have to run things in. While it's entirely possible for an Android App to be written with multiple different possible resolutions in mind, no one bothers yet. And the 3D hardware on HTC phones seems to vary wildly from phone to phone; of course Android will have a common 3D API for developers to use, but lest we forget it took MS a hell of a long time to develop direct X to a point where it wasn't shit.

    I don't mind the store, and I think, as a whole Android's a long, long way from unfinished (and a long long way out in front of WM6.5)
    Edited by 2 at 23/11/09 @ 13:22

  • penhalion #15 2 years ago

    @EvilBob_leeds

    Oh no it isn't. I'm pretty active in the Android on HTC Polaris project (o2 orbit 2 here in the UK) and frankly a lot of the stuff in the market place is designed to run at the res of the G1 / HTC Magic and looks pretty cack at the 240*320 I have to run things in.

    Hu?
    Oh no what isn't?

    All android apps work with any android phone. I didn't say they all ran identically or at the same resolution so what were you referring to?

  • EvilBob_leeds #16 2 years ago

    ???

    "Anything written to work for it will work with every android handset just like apples stuff will work with every iphone"

    Oh no everything on the app store does not work with every Android handset. Some of the programs on the app store are written to expect hardware which isn't necessarily there. Not just screen resolution and processor speed which means it looks / runs crappily, but memory and onboard peripherals too such as 3D mentioned above. It's something I expect Android developers to improve at as the range of handsets widens, but for now, no.

    For another thing, you've got to use a Java layer to get at the 3D hardware. Have you ever tried programming 3D stuff for use on more than one hardware rig in fucking Java??? I know it's meant to be write once, run anywhere ... but that don't make it so.
    Edited by 1 at 23/11/09 @ 15:29

  • fknetwork #17 2 years ago

    Andriod is PANTS, that's why apps don't sell on it....

  • postmanmatt #18 2 years ago

    iPhone kicks ass. Full stop!

  • UncleLou #19 2 years ago

    Two things they need to look at if they want to sell their games on Android.

    1) Quality

    2) Pricing

    Both are lacking at the moment hence they are not selling.

    Wait, so the Gameloft games on Android are shit? Or am I missing your point?

  • Jelly_Head #20 2 years ago

    MrED209: The problem with Android is that the software has to be designed to work on all manner of different handsets made by different companies. That's a major contributing factor to it not being as slick and polished as the iPhone OS, which works on only one design of handset.

    Hit the nail on the head there... rather like the difference between PCs and consoles.

  • pinochet_cz #21 2 years ago

    they have a point or two..market have big space for improvements and they can sell paid apps in two countries (maybe three), but:
    They forgot to say that these unsuccessful titles was some crap conversions from nokia.
    //
    btw..they turned around 180 degrees: http://ww w.androidcentral.com/gameloft-r...