MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Leading mobile game developer Gameloft will significantly decrease investment in Android supported games.
The Paris-headquartered mobile game developer went on to claim that – unlike Apple’s iPhone – no company is making significant money from Google’s mobile platform.
“We are selling 400 times more games on iPhone than on Android,” said Gameloft finance director Alexandre de Rochefort.
Speaking at a company investor conference, de Rochefort said: "We have significantly cut our investment in Android platform, just like many others.”
Gameloft’s move will place further doubt on the financial incentive for Android game development, with the announcement made days after RIM’s director of developer relations Mike Kirkup told Develop that few are buying Android apps.
de Rochefort went on to list the perceived weakness of Android’s application store.
“It is not as neatly done as on the iPhone,” he said, as quoted in a Reuters report.
“Google has not been very good to entice customers to actually buy products. On Android nobody is making significant revenue.”
Google’s Android platform is used by numerous smartphone manufacturers – such as Motorola and Sony Ericsson – due to its flexibility and potential for appealing design. The open platform is widely considered as the leading alternative to Apple’s iPhone OS, though the impact of Gameloft’s abandonment remains to be seen.
Nearly fifteen percent of Gameloft’s revenues come via App Store purchases.
