14 DAY TRIAL // France based games publisher and developer Ubisoft has announced that it has closed a deal with Gameloft on acquiring its India based games development studio. The deal will go through later in the year, when all the formalities are complete and the studio is ready to change hands.
Gameloft and Ubisoft are long time partners. Both companies are based in France and Ubisoft even had a large stake, of around 20%, in Gameloft until last year, when it sold it to an investment bank for around 190 million dollars. Gameloft is still the main partner in the mobile games market for Ubisoft as it produces mobile games based on most of the intellectual property coming out of Ubisoft. Apparently, the mobile games developer is also thinking on developing for other platforms, as it has recently made a move on the Xbox market with the Xbox Live Arcade title Prince of Persia Classic.
The studio that Ubisoft has bought is located in Pune, one of India's most important university centers, which is producing about 80,000 or so engineers in an year. There are currently 120 people employed at the studio, but Ubisoft plans on increasing the number to 200 right away and to 500 in the near future.
Christine Burgess-Qu?mard, who is executive director of worldwide studios at Ubisoft, declared: "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 video game industry and this is an opportunity for us to establish ourselves in the country."
The recent moves by most big game companies into the Asian market, also exemplified by Take Two, which named a new and experienced head of its Asian division, signify the importance that the videogames industry is placing on Asia as a source of technical expertise and as a gaming market.