Hello Guys This is Sourav, hope you are doing extremely well and we are back again with a fresh new series - The Rise and The Fall , where we are going to see how a game become so popular that it was installed on almost every device and how it became obselete. This is EP3 and this time around we are gonna take a look at the Rise and Fall of a Game studio - Gameloft. 

INTRODUCTION 

If you have ever played Asphalt series on your mobile phone or even remember Gangster Vegas Which my homies used to call GTA of phones tgen you must have heard about the Gameloft, tge studio is famous for developing high end Mobile games but from past few years the studio is facing a downfall 📉 and even tge recenue shares are not matching tge glories of the past. So, What is the reason that the company who once ruled tge entire mobile industry in 2014-15 is now becoming obselte. Join me in this adventurous journey of The Rise and Fall of Gameloft and yeah! Grab some tea or coffee 

Origin

So, Gameloft was started by Michael Guillemot in 1999. Oh! One thing you don't know about him is he also is the founder of Ubisoft 😉. They were 5 brothers who were once farmers but now are in video game business.

The Rise

So Gameloft studio's games were highly popular and are demanding but why? The main reason being thier genre of games. The games were highly inspired from tge popular games like Gangster Vegas was highly inspired from GTA 5 but is available on mobile to play. Another example is Zombie infection which clearly matches the vibe of Resident Evil and the list goes on. That was their USP and no other studios were developing these type of games. But hey! As they were popular they were also getting backlash as once it was asked from Michael why are they developing clones of the popular games? And he said there are no new generes left!.

Thier games were of Superb quality if you compared them with other games of that time and the gameplay was also polished and sometimes better than the original game 😉.

One more USP of the games was initially there were literally no Ads 🫶🏻. Now imagine how do mobile games make money either through micro-transactions or through ad but Gameloft decided to not go towards ads as it will ruin tge gameplay experience altogether.They took the path of providing the paid games where you can purchase the games once and enjoy it lifetime and that should be great in my opinion 😌.

They chose Quality over Quantity although they have like 190 games and in the beginning they were focusing on quantity but soon shift their focus on Quality.In 2014, they announced that they are going to focus more on quality and that is the main reason for such high quality games.

Another reason for their rise was Diversification, they did not limit themselves to a single category like Rockstar used to develop Open world games they have games in every genre and thus attracting all types of gamers from every genre. So These were the reasons for the Rise of Gameloft but then What happened in 2104-15 let's check that out. 

The Fall

There were monetary problems seems to raising up, the company which once told that ads are not good for games introduced ads in their games. No doubt they develop high quality games which requires sheer money but they didn't get the returns so ads was the only solution to them so they introduced Gameloft Advertising Solutions where they collaborate with brands to promote ads in their games.

Then, Changing Trends in mobile gaming industry seems to hit them. They were developing games but the games are not free, other publishers provide their games for free and those developers earn money through in app purchases like skins etc. or ads which Gameloft games avoid they were on the model of selling the game initially to makeup profits.

Next cause was the takeover of Gameloft by Vivendi, Vivendi is a huge France based Mass media company who aimed to capture the mobile gaming industry and what's better to take the biggest shark in the ocean so they went for Gameloft. Gameloft was hitting huge losses at that time and they were in a need of cash and that's where Vivendi comes into play but Micheal was unaware of the fact that Vivendi wants Gameloft. Firstly, Vivendi took 6% shares of the company and then 10% and by February 2016 they took 30% of Gameloft. Michael realised the takeover strategy and he requested shareholders to not sell their stakes but by tge end of June Vivendi acquired 56% of Gameloft, Michael left Gameloft and moved to Ubisoft because he realised the grand plan of Vivendi is to buy Ubisoft and Gameloft was the first step towards the Grand prize. This leads to change in the upper management of the studio and their focus shift towards making profits rather than making good games.

Competition started to rise and now the publishers of the big games like Call of Duty, Rainbow six siege, Assassin's Creed themselves start ro develop the mobile ports so the idea which make Gameloft famous i.e. developing the mobile versions of the popular high end games begin to flop. This marks the end of Gameloft golden time and now most of us don't play Gameloft games regularly. 

So, That was the Rise and Fall of Gameloft, the studio which gave us the joy of playing GTA 5 in mobile. 

Now, what is your favourite Gameloft game? Comment down below 👇🏻.

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