Arcopol Chaudhuri

Mumbai: International video game publisher Ubisoft,which has a presence in the online, console and video game development space, will acquire Gameloft’s mobile game development studio in Pune Gameloft is one of the largest mobile game development companies in India. It established its Pune studio in 2006.

The studio currently has a team of 120 developers and testers who will initially focus on creating titles for handheld consoles and reinforcing Ubisoft’s testing teams.

According to Gameloft officials, the buyout will push for increasing the team strength at the studio to about 200 over the next 12 months.

Analysts say the acquisition will help Ubisoft create a foothold in the mobile game development space, especially in India,which has over 250 million mobile phone owners.

Mariam Dholkawala, consultant, Igamestudio says, “Out of all the genres of gaming video, PC, mobile, online mobile gaming is showing the maximum potential. Gameloft, developer of the popular Prince of Persia series is a major player in the space and the acquisition will help Ubisoft for both Indian and south Asian markets.”

Officials at Gameloft, however, said that the buyout was long due and did not come across as news. “Considering that Ubisoft’s Yves Guillemot (CEO) and Gameloft’s Michel Guillemot (CEO) are brothers, this acquisition does not come across as a surprise,” said a spokesperson at Gameloft.

“Following on the recent announcement of our new Singapore studio, this acquisition will reinforce Ubisoft’s presence in Asia and the southeast region in particular. India has a promising future in the videogame industry and this is an opportunity for us to establish ourselves in the country,” stated Christine Burgess-Quémard, executive director, worldwide studios at Ubisoft.

Ravi Kumar, country manager, Gameloft India said, “We’ll now have a global resource pool to work with. Our Hyderabad and Pune studios have been doing extremely well and we’ve clocked revenues of about Rs 2.5 crore in FY2007-2008. Internationally, we’ve been growing at about 40%, much ahead of our competitors.”

Source : DNA