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Gameloft Scales Back Android Game Development
by Leigh Alexander [PC, Console/PC, Mobile Phone]
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November 20, 2009
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French mobile publisher Gameloft (Hero Of Sparta) says it's scaling back its investment in development for Google's Android platform -- and that, dissatisfied with Android's weak application store, other developers are following suit.
"We have significantly cut our investment in Android platform, just like... many others," Gameloft finance director Alexandre de Rochefort said at an investor conference, as reported by Reuters.
Android's app store is "not as neatly done as on the iPhone," De Rochefort said. The company's also displeased with Google's outreach efforts: "Google has not been very good to entice customers to actually buy products," he adds. "On Android nobody is making significant revenue."
Gameloft claims to sell 400 times more games on iPhone than Android, according to the director. 95 percent of the company's revenue in its fiscal third quarter came from mobile games, and the company's revenue from the segment has climbed 17 percent over the past nine months due primarily to the performance of its iPhone titles -- which accounted for 13 percent of revenues in the last quarter.
However, with many models of Android phones still to launch, and sites like MocoNews.net pointing out that companies like Glu and CBS are still actively developing Android apps, it's possible that the market may develop in the future.
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The droid is going to be a tough market. Because of open development there are already tons of free games out there. While most of these free games out there lack the aesthetic polish of a professionally produced game, it doesn't change the fact that they're free. You can pay $3 for Gem Miner, or try one of the fifty free clones out there. There may be fewer animated sparkles but it will kill time just the same. Will users spend $3 for that extra quality? I won't.
Granted you won't find an equivalent of Assassin's Creed II for free, but gaming on a mobile phone isn't very conducive to hardcore/time intensive gamer, that's why we have DS and PSP. If you desire to tap into the portable gaming market, develop for one of those. In general, developing a AAA game for a mobile device takes just as much cost/effort (if not more!) than developing for a major gaming platform, and the most you could ever hope sell it for is $10. And considering the Android's current lack in popularity, it's definitely not worth the time or money.
I claim the majority of Android users only want to play a simple puzzle game/board game/2D arcade shooter while waiting in line for lunch. Currently the top downloads in the Android app store reflect this, in both the free and paid categories. (Though it's still too early to be making these kinds of generalization :) )
In conclusion, make a cheap tower defense game for the iphone, otherwise some chum will make a free clone for the android.