Gameloft Rules Mobile Market
Lou Kesten - Associated Press
Apr 06, 2009
Lofty Aspirations: The most ambitious game developers focus their efforts on the high-end consoles, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. But there's a humbler game machine that just about everyone uses: the ubiquitous cell phone.
Paris-based Gameloft leads the way in mobile gaming, having sold more than 200 million games since 2003. Gameloft president and CEO Michel Guillemot says, "Whatever platform people are using, they will demand a very good game. ... We need to provide games that are as good as on consoles."
The company's irresistible time-killers, like "Uno," "Let's Golf" and "Oregon Trail," are available on practically every cell phone on the market - including, of course, Apple's iPhone. "When we saw the iPhone we thought it had great gaming potential," Guillemot says. "Apple created the perfect device on its first try."
Besides its slick interface, the iPhone promises something other cell phones haven't been able to offer, says Guillemot: very high-end games you can download via computer.
Still, he says, it's a real challenge to get noticed on Apple's crowded App Store. Gameloft is depending on old-fashioned word-of-mouth.
"When you have 7,000 apps, you need consumers to tell friends you have a good game," Guillemot says. "If you do something different, better, more interesting, consumers will take you out of the crowd."
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Copyright 2012 by Associated Press
