Gameloft made $44.2M last quarter, most of it on the app store: http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/11/03/gameloft-announces-q3-results-expands-into-southeast-asia-and-the-middle-east/ So I'm coming to the following conclusion: in spite of allegedly massive piracy and all the other whining about problems with the app store, those who make good games are still able to make buckets of money. Edit: by "good" I mean "likely to appeal to average-Joe-gamers with iPhones" or something like that...
Well yeah, when you push out shoddy products to a demographic starved of actual quality games, and do it while shamelessly using the assets and brand recognition of other IP's, you can make a heap of cash...wow!
Genuine question - for what games are they shamelessly using brand recognition and assets? They have a lot of games in the store and I'm only familiar with a few of them.
Gangstar, blades of fury, Hero of sparta, modern combat. All have done well by primarily riding on the success of well known franchises. And not even done well to boot.
Remember that Gameloft actually has tools to fight the piracy against its games. They haven't compltely gotten rid of it but many less of their games are pirated than the indies
Are you sure? I just did some searching and it only took me two minutes to find torrents of cracked versions of literally all their games.
Yeah but in the dungeon hunter thread I heard of people stating that they couldn't get past a certain level, when the game crashed.
Actually, of those I would only defend Blades of Fury, which I think stand on its own as a great iPhone fighting game (and one that I still play regularly a couple months after it was released). Then again, le'deuche and I have disagreed on this very point before . Oh, and I agree: Asphalt 5 rocks. Guess you could say that's a Burnout clone (sort of).
Keep in mind that's $44m in sales, not profit. According to PocketGamer they had upwards of $160m in sales last year, but managed a net loss of over $2m. In other words, it's easy to spend more buckets of money than you make.
EXACTLY. I was just about to say this as well. I am glad someone pointed it out. For all we know, they are barely making it.
Blades of Fury is a good game, but it is a pretty blatant rip off of the Soul Caliber series. The way the camera moves, the cheesy one liners, the characters, and environments are all a bit too similar.
Or rather, those with decent advertising budget, a brand-name that guarantees free press for most of their titles manage to sell games. Don't have anything in particular against Gameloft or their games but obviously they play with a different set of rules compared to most indies.
Oh brother. So let me get this straight, you think one game of each genre is plenty and anyone else who makes a game similar or better using the same premise is a copy cat and should be ashamed? Or are you simply talking our of your ass like someone who just doesn't like gameloft? They aren't forcing you to buy their games, if you don't like them then ignore them. And do the rest of us a favor by not chiming in when it comes to gameloft. We don't want to hear the same bs for every game they release, period.
oww, that's alot of money, does anybody know how much apple takes of the app's that are selling, like for a 1 dollar app, how much do they take in "Aplle Taxes" or whatever..?
amen. My first game was from gameloft and it cost 5.99. Their games allow the idevice to appear as an actual gaming platform and because of this first purchase, I have no put hundreds into the appstore. I'm sure many stand with me in appreciating what gameloft has done for the appstore, and no their games are not cheap ripoffs of any kind.
i agree with u. i constantly hear ppl saying "GL does nothing but make cheap clones of other games." my question is, would u rather have a "cheap" copy based on a fun game, then have none at all? yes its obvious from what games they're copying, but all of those games are fun, and the ones i have purchased have proved to be good to have on my ipod for whenever i feel like playing them. something is better than nothing
Hehe… I don't think there's such a genre as: Military FPS set in middle east with the title, "Modern [insert a synonym of 'Warfare' here]." Same for: Ancient greek 3D platformer where you battle huge-ass beasts. I agree with others that Gameloft has done a LOT of good for taking the app store to where it is today, but when you look at their overall library of games, most of them come from ripping off some really popular franchises. They're not a very innovative company, but you have to hand it to them for knowing what people want.
You sir....are an idiot. My point has nothing to do with genre, so try reading the post again..slower, in bite sized bits before you engage me in debate again.
