Gameloft sees initial success with expansion to PC/consoles | Biden News

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Mobile game companies have seen their revenues decline as the pandemic excitement died down and Apple’s push for privacy over targeted ads took hold.

But for the first nine months of 2022, Gameloft’s revenues were $223 million (€215 million), up 17.0% compared to the same period in 2021 in a sharply declining video game market that decreased by 9% in the same time frame. How did that happen?

Much of the success is due to Disney Dreamlight Valley, which is Gameloft’s first major title to debut on the PC and all major console platforms. Alexandre Schweizer, chief financial officer at Gameloft in Paris, said in an interview with GamesBeat that the company’s strategic shift to console-PC-mobile cross-platform games has been a success.

Alexandre Schweizer is CFO of Gameloft.

During the third quarter of 2022, Gameloft’s revenues reached an all-time high of $98.6 million (€95 million), up 48.1% compared to the same period in 2021. Disney Dreamlight Valley debuted on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X/S, Steam, Epic and Microsoft Store.

The game debuted in September in early access, and in its first ten days, Disney Dreamlight Valley hit one million installs and was the #1 game on Steam, Game Pass and Nintendo Switch. More multi-platform games from Gameloft studios and positioned as GaaS (games as a service) will be launched in the coming years.

Disney Dreamlight Valley, Asphalt 9: Legends, Disney Magic Kingdoms, Dragon Mania Legends, and March of Empires accounted for 49% of Gameloft’s total revenue during the first nine months and were the five bestsellers of the period. Of course, that means mobile games are still a big part of Gameloft, which was started in 1999 by Ubisoft co-founder Michel Guillemot and then acquired by media conglomerate Vivendi in 2016. Gameloft now has more than 3,500 employees.

“Three years ago, in January 2019, we decided to change the strategy of the company,” said Schweizer. “We presented this change in strategy to our shareholder, Vivendi, and decided to pivot some of our best teams to PC and console games. And what you see now is really the result of this change in strategy.”

Disney Speedstorm comes from Gameloft for the Nintendo Switch.

Thanks to the immediate success of Disney Dreamlight Valley, Gameloft’s mobile diversification is accelerating: console and PC revenues represented 26% of Gameloft’s total revenues during the first nine months of 2022. Gameloft has another Disney title, a racing game called Disney Speedstorm , . in the works for the Nintendo Switch.

Other games come from different studios for the consoles and the computer.

“We have four or five games we’re talking about,” Schweizer said. “We are very excited and very happy that our first launch is a major success. In fact, it’s the biggest success we’ve ever had in terms of revenue, in the first 30 days of a game launch.”

The transition was not difficult in one way. Schweizer pointed out that high-end iPhones are more powerful than Nintendo Switch systems, and so the mobile focus did not mean that the teams would have problems meeting the quality requirements of the PC and console.

At the time of the pivot, Gameloft saw that the high-end market in mobile was not as dynamic and profitable as it was.

“We have clearly positioned ourselves on the high end of mobile gaming. And from 2017 to 2019, the hypercase market made a significant impact on the market,” said Schweizer. “This sparked a discussion about our future. Do we go after this market? Do we change our DNA? Do we ask our developers to start working on hypercase games? Or do we double down on our DNA and our strength?”

Disney Dreamlight Valley can be beautiful or spoiled.
Disney Dreamlight Valley can be beautiful or spoiled.

The employees wanted to work on the most ambitious titles possible.

“Rather than change the DNA of the company, we made the difficult decision,” Schweizer said.

That decision turned out to be a good one, as hyper-casual games began to falter during Apple’s privacy push in the past year and a half.

But Gameloft isn’t focused on huge budgets. Rather, it focuses on quality and games-as-a-service. And it will continue to launch mobile games, which are still 59% of its revenue. Disney Speedstorm is built with the company’s in-house game engine and the company’s Asphalt studio in Barcelona.

“There are some games where we feel it’s better to do it with our own engines,” Schweizer said.

Kapablono grew a little.

“We’ve been very fortunate to have our new strategy work well for us in terms of products and positioning,” he said. “We are clearly superior. This is due to the success our games have on Apple arcade, PC and console platforms.”

But catalog sales of mobile games are slowing, partly because of the downturn.

Of course, Schweizer said that the company is aware of the risks for gaming of the macroeconomic downturn, with inflation, slower growth and other problems in the world economy.

Disney Dreamlight Valley looks very impressive.
Disney Dreamlight Valley helped Gameloft pivot into PC/consoles.

Schweizer said the company is not focused on virtual reality or augmented reality. But it explores blockchain, machine learning and AI. The company still doesn’t have anything planned for sure in blockchain or machine learning in the near future.

“We’re still looking at this,” he said. “We did a lot of R&D on that.”

The company has become a long-term partner with Disney and has been for over 10 years.

“We really want to continue working with them because we have a very strong relationship. But at the end of the day, we have our own franchises. I just want to be very clear about the fact that Disney Dreamlight Valley is not a one-off. It’s really the beginning of a new era for Gameloft where we have a more balanced portfolio and revenue stream between mobile and PC and console. So you should pay attention to the news flow coming from Gameloft because I think we’re going to have some pretty cool products coming out.”

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