The sudden surge in interest in Android (largely due to all of the hype surrounding the Droid) has caused a lot of developers to reconsider the platform. Atleast one major development house, however, isn’t impressed.
Earlier today, Alexandre de Rochefort, Finance Director of Gameloft, told an investor conference that the company had “significantly cut [their] investment in Android platform, just like … many others”. Gameloft is one of the largest mobile games companies around, having pulled in roughly $132 million in the last three quarters alone. While there are plenty of fish in the developer sea, this can’t be one that Google is happy to see swim away.
The reason they’re cutting back, adds Rochefort, is that Google hasn’t done enough to “entice customers to actually buy products” on the platform. Regardless of how you feel about Google’s approach to the market, you can’t argue with the numbers: according to Rochefort, they’ve sold “400 times more games on iPhone than on Android”.
Consider this a gauge for Android’s success over the next year and a half or so; if Android can grow at a fast enough rate and sell enough handsets to keep the big dev teams on board (and, perhaps, even regain Gameloft’s interest), we’ll know things are going alright.
[Via Reuters]
Android has been around for a year now, the iphone for what? 3 years? 400% would qualify to be almost the same amount per year wouldn’t it?
Sorta. iPhone App Store didn’t launch until July 2008. Android Market launched 3 months later, alongside the G1, in Oct 2008. iPhone had a headstart on app sales, but it wasn’t a matter of years.
What was the installed user base on the G1 versus the iPhone at that point though? It does seem like they are turning a blind eye to what is about to happen in the Android world.
Since you are so good at telling the future, wanna give us next weeks winning lottery numbers?
rules youre a delusional google fanboy. stfu.
And the Mr. Magoo award for short sighted moron executive goes to Gameloft!
My God, don’t they think that this trend is going to reverse. As a tech worker in Washington DC, all I can tell you is that I CONSTANTLY have conversations pop up as soon as I pull out my Iphone that all say the same thing: “yeah, it’s a nice phone, but I wish it was on Verizon, and I don’t think I could type emails without a keyboard”
The sales of the Droid are going to continue to be strong. People love Verizon, and the word of mouth on its major capabilities, like the Google Navigation app, are going to sell this phone and make Android famous. My brother bought a Droid, and I am frickin jealous after riding in his car and seeing the turn by turn in action as it broadcast directions by temporarily lowering the volume on his pandora player.
Wake up! This operating system is finally getting the hardware it deserves, on a network that blows ATt&T’s bs out of the water. The Droid can make phone calls! I think that alone will sell it over my damned Iphone. (3 dropped calls at least per day)
@JP Kab.
Gameloft isn’t leaving Android completely. They’re just reducing investments as those developers are better off on the iPhone. 40000 percent is alot.
There’s nothing stopping them from shifting focus back and forth where the dollars are.
Personally I think by the end of next year or 2011 we’ll start seeing significant storage space for apps on Android phones and that generation of buyers will be installing more.
Gameloft say they sell 400 times as many apps on iPhone, that makes 40000% more!
Yes, why is that a surprise? The Iphone has been around for 3 years. Android for.. like.. 6 months?
At this point, one really knows what Game Loft is up to: http://androidcommunity.com/gameloft-decides-to-come-back-to-android-20091126/
400 times is not 400% it is 40.000%
Yup. Except thats they sold 400 times more, not 400%. Or am I reading wrong?
I think you’re reading it right and I wouldn’t be surprised.
App Store is extremely cheap, easy and convenient while waiting for anything.
In the end it isn’t really cheap. I have never spent so much on applications ever before. But it isn’t expensive either.
Right. 400x = 40000%
Well maybe Gameloft should look at the horrible quality of games they have brought to the Android Market. They port over games from it seems featurephones, but charge iphone game prices. No wonder no one buys their shit.
But yes Google definitely have to improve the Market experience.
They were testing the water, and the water is too cold to their taste.
Gameloft so far has been making laughable games on Android, but the games are cheaper, I can imagine also quite cheaper to develop.
But still they couldn’t break even, so byebye for now.
Another fact one have to admit is: the Apps are in general of lesser quality on Android than on the iPhone, not only Gameloft titles.
Seems incredibly shortsighted of them since Android is basically just starting to get off the ground.
When Android sets come to full bloom in 2010, Gameloft will back. Business is Business afterall. Their departure will be short-lived when they see the multiple handsets coming from every carrier on the planet. There just blowing a little smoke right now.
I think Gameloft could be losing out in the long run. they should consider that the iPhone is much better geared toward running high quality game apps than the phones that run android. it’s not even just the quality of the games, it’s the ease of obtaining them and playing them. the iPhone is still one of the higher quality phones used for apps, so obviously they have a higher install base and sell more apps. not to mention Apple still has the largest advertising campaign for their app store. I don’t think I’ve seen an ad for a specific app on any other phone than the iPhone.
I could’ve saved gameloft the time and hassle by just telling them “java sucks”.
Ever heard of Native Development for Android? Thought so.
The Android Market app needs a lot of improvement. And plus, there’s no way to view apps unless they’re on your phone! And 2 screenshots is too little. And why don’t developers have to put changelogs on updates?
Etc, etc, etc.
As much as I dislike Apple’s policies on iPhone development, at least the end user isn’t suffering by needing to jump through a ton of hoops.
Totally agree. The market is the worst thing ever to come from Google. It’s Yahoo.com before Google search, full of garbage hiding the gems.
Interesting post, but even more interesting would be to know why Google dont market Android apps more
Why should they? Are they selling software nowadays? Or hardware?
Something is up inside Apple with regards to gaming apps, as they just announced some increased hiring for Apple game developers. If Apple themselves are boosting game development for the iPhone/Touch (possibly Tablet) then the race just got harder for competitors like Android.
On the flip side however, if your gaming shop can afford to at least dedicate full time resources to Android development, you’ll be in a good position for when it gains market share and customer base.. which knowing Google is only a matter of time.
Interesting bit of info.
I have my eyes set on an Android or the Nokia n900 (not into games) but as soon as I read your comment I couldn’t help but think of a gaming platform for Apple – which I guess you were leading up to.
They have a history of using one platform to segue into another…
iPod -> iTouch -> iPhone -> i???
A few of my friends own iPhones and I have to admit the games they’ve demoed for me look and feel impressive.
Who knows… they may slowly be entering the portable gaming systems (which they’ve already partially done on handhelds) and eventually eyeing PSP, xbox and Nintendo as competitors.
In any case… love the competition – everybody wins.
Android audience itself is different. If you don’t adapt to the market, and just simply “port” things over, you will loose.
Big deal! Less crappy apps on the marketplace. I would invite all soundboard and other crapware makers to leave Android Market immediately. It’s not the quantity of apps, it’s the quality and all serious apps are already on Android and that’s what’s important. I care less about crappy games and unhappy crappy games makers. Go away! Leave the Market! Go on milking your iPhone demographic, alright! Whiners!
Nik, did you know those soundboard crapps are in huge demand and get downloaded more frequently than anything else? well I do, and I make them! Its what people want even tho we all know its crap. God damn, they even sell. Paid crapps!
If you make them then, then why don’t you make a single soundboard app that has downloadable soundboard libs – the Market is polluted with the same thing over & over again.
Who said I am not working on something like that already? I need a steady revenue stream while I make that home-run app you know. Crapps pay for bills.
Go buy a Gameloft game on Android and see if you think this announcement is a big suprise. Their games are terrible! Few are rated higher than three stars, not even Platinum Solitaire! For a pro dev house that’s pathetic. Even classic games with huge followings like The Settlers are poorly ranked and have comments detailing exactly what is wrong.
I say get your crappy app spam out of the market if that’s all the better you can do
Why don’t you give some press to the indy developers who are making Android work for them instead of wasting press on these crybabies!?
I’m not expert on Android, but I think developing a game on Android platform is much like developing a game on any other cell-phone, it’s plagued with phones with different specifications.
I think only bigger cellphone gaming companies (like Digital Chocolate) will do games for Android platform and that’s a shame, because I’ve seen a lot of interesting games for Iphone/Ipod touch that has been made by a single developer.
You’re absolutely right. There are 3 versions of the OS and serveral diffrent phones on the market and growing. The Iphone doesn’t have that many combinations. It must be a nightmare for developers. I love my Hero, but stories like these make me worry that I won’t be doing much gaming on it.
The success of todays handset market relies on the quality of GAMES!!! nothing else matters but got dammit give the people games and they will love you.
i am seriously hoping palm takes notice and turns that 3gs hardware like on for some kick ass games on a pocket palm sized device.
I can tell you’re a gamer, but you’re wrong. It depends on usefulness of apps. Some of the apps I worked on were a major deciding factor for people buying the device.
it should be noted that gameloft has so far only produced bad rated crap for android… most seem like symbian ports
It doesn’t seem like Android has gotten to the point of maturity in both software and hardware where it makes sense for the big guys to dedicate resources to the platform.
You still have Android 1.x and 2.x, numerous different phones and some tablet-style media player devices, can you develop for one and deploy on all?
I think its going to be a bit before there are enough competitive Android 2.x devices in the hands of consumers (with the Droid being the first) out there to justify hiring new resources or moving resources away from iPhone / Touch development.
Well, plenty of “big guys” like Facebook, Pandora, Evernote, AP, and BBC seem to disagree with you, since they all have either released or are working on Android programs.
you are all forgetting that the iphone environment also includes the ipod touch. If you develop for the iphone you are also (generally) catching the ipod touch market.
Not really much of a surprise. I know around 7 people with Android phones, and not one of them has a single game installed. I know I can personally say that I’ve never even looked at the games in the marketplace, and I’ve had an Android phone since the G1 launched. I have several apps, some paid, some free, and some a free app that hooks into a paid service, but never even looked at games.
The crowd who buy Android phones are not the same as the crowd who buy iPhones. The Android crowd more resembles the traditional Palm/Windows Mobile/BlackBerry smartphone market, where the iPhone crowd more resembles the high-end of the featurephone market. Each market has very different buying trends. The smartphone market buying habits tend towards utilities, productivity apps and tools, while the featurephone market tends towards games, ringtones and entertainment apps. I don’t anticipate that the Android Market will ever be as enticing a target for developers looking to sell disposable entertainment apps, but it definitely will be a more enticing place for higher-priced utility and productivity programs.
google should have had more oversight on the hardware that was coming out. just about every device that came out is mediocre. you can throw most of the android devices in the garbage.
Android == Fail and everyone knows it
By “everyone” I assume you mean Apple fans, rather than the executives at LG, Samsung, Sony, Motorola and HTC, who are all rushing to jump on the Android bandwagon. But you are probably right. Owning an iPhone, and maybe having a blog, makes you eminently more qualified to know the future of the mobile industry than someone who just runs a phone manufacturer.
“By “everyone” I assume you mean Apple fans, rather than the executives at LG, Samsung, Sony, Motorola and HTC, who are all rushing to jump on the Android bandwagon.”
Well let’s see, Apple doesn’t license their OS out, neither does Palm. Windows Mobile is going down in flames and Symbian isn’t exactly a spring chicken.
Winning by default – not exactly a vote of confidence there, is it? But hey, who knows – maybe now consumers will be focused on meaningless checklists of features and unpolished user experiences. I mean it worked well enough before the iPhone, right?
What? Oh, wait….
Nice to know, but maybe your statement is valid in another, parallel universe and not in ours. Tell it to everybody salivating to get the Droid, which finally is a good piece of hardware hosting the greatest Mobile OS to date. Actually, a piece of hardware that is even better than iPhone 3GS.
“Actually, a piece of hardware that is even better than iPhone 3GS.”
Until Apple releases their next version. And then the Android makers release their new version. And the leapfrogging continuesad-infinitum.
Yawn.
It’s *the whole package*. The iPhone experience is polished. Android’s isn’t. Until then all the whining and postulating isn’t going to change the success of Android as a platform. Yeah, they will have some volume, but like all the other iPhone killers Google will continue to miss the mark.
AT&T has been adding more subs per quarter for three in a row and Verizon stayed “#1″ by buying Alltell. Who are they going to buy now? Phones matter and they screwed up big time by passing on the iPhone.
And all you guys enjoying your Android phones need to send Steve Jobs a thank you. Verizon wouldn’t be offering an open phone like Android if they absolutely weren’t forced to by Apple and the iPhone. My how quickly the digital elite (ha!) forget that Verizon until very recently were the biggest jerks when it came to restrictions and fees on their phones. Talk about fanbois, everyone bought into Verizon’s network nonsense and overlooked the fact that they were getting screwed on smartphones (wifi? What’s that?). I’ll take an occasional dropped call – a few times a month isn’t that big a deal – vs. all the utility I get from the iPhone ecosystem. Heck, when I grew up you actually had to go to a phone in a fixed location – sometimes even public pay phones (oh the humanity!) to make a call and somehow we survived. Why we even went whole hours without talking to friends or family (the horror!).
Verizon is far from perfect; AT&T and Sprint work at my house but the big V is a no show. Just like there are areas where AT&T doesn’t work and Verizon does – all carriers are very location specific. I have traveled quite a bit in the US since owning an iPhone, and I find the fuss over AT&T’s network is vastly overblown – esp. when you balance it against of the rest of the iPhone experience. If you think about it, it’s pretty bad that Verizon’s only real counter is “but but but our network is better! So there!” With “better” being 100% subjective depending on where you are. If you are at my friends parent’s house in Ohio, neither AT&T nor Verizon work. America isn’t Europe or Japan – we have significant land mass. We also aren’t some late to the game country who skipped wired phones and have been building out our primary phone system as a cellular network. Infrastructure build outs are neither cheap, easy or fast. I would love to see Verizon get the iPhone if for nothing else then to see their network collapse. They have been so historically restrictive on their handsets that’s how they have been able to prop up their network performance. Bring it on Verizon – get some devices that actually encourage data usage and let’s see how you scale – tough talk is pretty easy when you have a comparatively light load.
Speaking of traveling, have fun with that Verizon phone outside the US. Then again the vast majority of the US population doesn’t even have a passport let alone leave the country. Sigh….
I have no love for AT&T – they certainly have their faults and with all carriers it’s the lesser of the evils. But I think AT&T get’s far too little credit for taking a (at the time) humongous chance with the iPhone. Until the iPhone, phones (at least in the US) were made for the *carriers*, not the consumer. The iPhone was the first to change that, and that more then anything is no doubt why the big V dissed Apple in the first place. Dinosaurs….
You can hate on Apple or AT&T all you want, but everyone is benefiting from the changes they brought to the US cellular industry (still kicking and screaming, BTW)
This comment was brought to by AT&T. “Less bars is more US places.”
This is a blame-shift by Gameloft. They are right that Google isn’t rolling out a red carpet for developers, but their games are complete garbage and aren’t worth paying for. Instead of looking at the quality of their games, Gameloft blames Google for not doing enough for developers.
I’d be curious to see the rate of refunds. Something the Android Market does that the iPhone Apps Store does NOT is give users the liberty to return the app and get a refund within the first 24 hours, no questions asked. In this way the Market is friendliest to the user–not to the developer community or even to Google. In fact, it IS harshest on the developer, but it’s the best feedback loop to date! If people don’t like the product, people get to return the product, and the developer needs to go back to the drawing board if people don’t buy the product or return it in droves.
It’s about time someone showed up and splashed cold water on the face of lazy developers who think they can get rich on millions of micropayments for substandard product.
Personally, having bought a number of gameloft apps in the Android Market and seeing that they were about the same quality as an app for a $20 weaky-squeaky “dumb phone,” I’m glad to see them go. There are independent devs making better quality games for often a lower price and sometimes free.
Had I not been completely underwhelmed by the low quality of the gameloft games I bought (3 out of the 4 I bought didn’t even have an Exit/Quit button/menu item etc. Not that it really needs it if the app dies gracefully, but it was something that stuck out to me. One of them was really awkward: you could change the options of the game but only after you started playing, thereby having to restart.
What doesn’t make sense to me is their attitude of “well, if we’re not going to sell 400 times this amount then we’re not gonna sell ANY here.” Hey, $5.00 may be less than $20000.00 but it’s more than $0.00.
Gameloft = FAIL.
er, make that: “Had I not been completely underwhelmed by the low quality of the gameloft games I bought I might be concerned. 3 of the…”
Boohoo gameloft
android rules where it counts
So what is a killer game they released that we will miss the sequel?
Way to go gameloft great strategy!
1) Wait until Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile for the first time in the history of this platform start introducing handsets (like HTC Hero, Moto Blur, Samsung Moment, and Moto Droid) for the first time on national US TV and there is a buzz finally for the product and they actually start to sell well because you can walk into a national US store (like best buy, walmart, verizon, sprint, tmobile stores) etc and then discontinue something when people finally see it as an iphone alternative..
SMART VERY SMART!
When Apple rolled out the app store, they had major developers on board with games/apps. It was a long time ago, but I know there was Crash Bandicoot, Monkey Ball, and other professionally made apps. It grew from there. Now I can get Command and Conquer, Spore, and Katamari.
Google isn’t interested in selling anything top-notch to the end-user as much as having Android on all phones. They just want to have their in-house apps to collect your info and sell some ads.
Their customers are advertisers not you.
Gameloft made the right decision to test the initial water, but they may regret backing off in the coming months.
The advantage had with the iPhone is exactly that; its a phone. People desire the item, rather than the OS, and therefore mass Android adoption will only take off when we have a substantial number of manufacturers offering the OS.
We all know this is going to happen, with the likes of Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Motorola all on board, but there is going to be no big rush to purchase an Android supported handset.
Now the so called impending ‘Google Phone’….now that could create the surge of market share Android needs to be truly mainstream, and drive adoption and investment in developing for the Android Market,
this is one funny pic ! :D
Steve
http://www.isopurewater.com/