Gameloft
| Gameloft SE | |
|---|---|
 Logo used since 2010 | |
| Formerly | Game Loft/GameLoft.com (1999-2001) |
| Type | Subsidiary |
| Euronext Paris: GLFT | |
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | 14 December 1999 |
| Founder | Michel Guillemot |
| Headquarters | , France |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people |
|
| Revenue |  €303 million[1] (2025) |
Number of employees | 2,366 (2025) |
| Parent | Vivendi (2016–present) |
| Subsidiaries | Gameloft Montreal Gameloft Barcelona Gameloft Bucharest Gameloft Brisbane Gameloft Ukraine Gameloft Hanoï Gameloft Saigon Gameloft Yogyakarta Gameloft Sofia Gameloft Paris |
| Website | www.gameloft.com |
| Footnotes [2] | |
Gameloft SE is a French video game company based in Paris, founded in December 1999 by Ubisoft co-founder Michel Guillemot. The company operates 10 development studios worldwide, and publishes games for mobile devices, video game consoles, and PC. The group is known for numerous successful video games and franchises on mobile and, in recent years, on PC and consoles, from Asphalt to Disney Dreamlight Valley. Formerly a public company traded at the Paris Bourse, Gameloft was acquired by French investment company Vivendi in 2016. The group successfully diversified into PC and console games in addition to the mobile market starting in 2022.
History
[edit]Game development strategy
[edit]Gameloft was founded by Michel Guillemot, one of the five founders of Ubisoft, on 14 December 1999.[3][4] Gameloft's first game was Valdo and the Pirates.[5] By February 2009, Gameloft had shipped over 200 million copies of its games since its IPO,[6] as well as 2 million daily downloads of its games via the App Store for iOS.[7][8][9]
Gameloft quickly became the world leader in mobile video games (and would remain so until the mid-2010s).[10][11] Between 2003 and 2006, Gameloft experienced significant growth, with annual revenue increasing by more than 100%. Its workforce grew from 100 to 2,400 employees in just 3 years. In 2005, it was ranked as the fourth fastest-growing European company.[12][13]
In 2004, Gameloft Montreal launched the first installment of the Asphalt franchise: Asphalt Urban GT. The game, a paid title, was a considerable success for the emerging mobile market, selling over 5 million copies.[14]
In 2006, Gameloft drew inspiration from the gameplay of GTA-style games to launch its own open-world action franchise on mobile: Gangstar, with Gangstar: Crime City as the first installment.[15] The game adapted this type of experience, very popular on consoles, to the significant technical limitations of mobile phones at the time. The series quickly became one of the studio's major franchises, with very noticeable technical leaps between entries, much like the Asphalt series, driven by the rapid advancement of smartphone capabilities from the early 2000s to today, an evolution that is far faster than that of consoles, which already start from a higher baseline but progress at a slower pace, and which Gameloft will be one of the main groups, and at first the only one, to make maximum use of the technical potential of 2000s and 2010s phones, in particular with Asphalt and Gangstar.[16][17][18]
In 2009, Gameloft released, among others, Asphalt 5, which achieved widespread success with over 20 million downloads[19], as well as its first games in its franchises Dungeon Hunter, N.O.V.A., Modern Combat; Dungeon Hunter and Modern Combat will be primarily developed by Gameloft Montreal, and N.O.V.A. by Gameloft Bucharest, with the first 3 of these series being 2009 releases.[20][21][22][23]
In a May 2011 keynote, de Rochefort stated that he wanted to avoid moving the company to the NASDAQ stock exchange, as the U.S. games market appeared to be nothing more than a large economic bubble, especially when seeing Zynga's then US$10 billion total stock value.[24]
Several Gameloft's games from early 2010s have often been accused of being clones of other properties;[25][26][27][28] when asked about it at the November 2011 Consumer Electronics Show, chief executive officer (CEO) Michel Guillemot stated: "The videogame industry has always played around a limited number of themes. There is maybe one new idea a year."[29][30] In response to many users commenting on Guillemot's remarks, Levi Buchanan of IGN defended Gameloft, stating that its games were usually well-polished, in contrary to the original concepts' games.[31]
During the first fiscal quarter of 2012, Gameloft recorded a 59% increase in sales of its games on smartphones and tablets compared to the same period in 2011, thanks in particular to the release of Asphalt 7: Heat, The Dark Knight Rises, Zombiewood, Modern Combat 4 : Zero Hour, and The Amazing Spider-Man (2014).[32][33]
In 2013, the company achieved three major successes. Despicable Me: Minion Rush, developed by Gameloft Barcelona,[34] has been downloaded over 1 billion times since its release, making it one of the most successful mobile games of all time, as well as Asphalt 8: Airborne, also developed by Gameloft Barcelona, which became the highest-rated game ever created in Spain.[35] At the same time, Gangstar Vegas, an open-world game developed by Gameloft Montreal[36], has accumulated more than 200 million downloads.[37][38][39]. Additionally, N.O.V.A. 3, a major paid title with no microtransactions from Gameloft Bucharest, also achieved significant success and received very positive reviews from the press.[40][41]
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By July 2014, Gameloft announced that it would focus more strongly on quality than on quantity.[42]
In April 2013, Texan company Lodsys filed a lawsuit against Gameloft, among other mobile game developers, for infringing its patent on in-app purchases.[43] Similar lawsuits were previously intervened by Apple Inc., who claim to have licensed the technology from Lodsys for usage in its App Store.[44] Lodsys withdrew its lawsuit against Gameloft after losing similar cases against other groups.[45]
In February 2012 and February 2016, Gameloft penned publishing contracts with GREE, Inc. s.d GungHo Online Entertainment, respectively, to facilitate its presence in the Asian market.[46][47]
From end 2014 to 2022, Gameloft experienced a significant period of difficulty, despite some successes (Dungeon Hunter 5, Modern Combat 5, March of Empires, Dragon Mania Legends, Asphalt 9 Legends), primarily due to extremely strong competition and an increasingly saturated mobile gaming market. During this period (and particularly between 2015 and 2019), Gameloft closed several studios and reduced staff at many others. Gameloft's total number of employees has almost halved over these 8 years, dropping from over 5 000 to less than 3 000.[48][49] Although there were some exceptions such as Gameloft Barcelona, which continued to grow thanks to its Asphalt games, and for example also Gameloft Montreal, which remained stable and will allow Gameloft to recover in 2022 thanks largely to Disney Dreamlight Valley.[50][51]