Gameloft Cutting Back On Android Development Due To Low Returns

With all of the hype surrounding the Droid lately, you would think developers would be jumping at the opportunity to develop for Google's Android platform, but apparently that's not the case for some. According to Reuters, Gameloft's finance director Alexandre de Rochefort doesn't have a lot of faith in Google's platform right now:

"We have significantly cut our investment in Android platform, just like ... many others."

Or at least not as much as he has in Apple's:

“It is not as neatly done as on the iPhone. Google has not been very good to entice customers to actually buy products. On Android nobody is making significant revenue."

Rochefort goes on to state that the company is selling 400 times more games on the iPhone than on the Android, and that iPhone games accounted for 13 percent of Gameloft's revenue last quarter. Although Rochefort claims that Android's app store is to blame, you still have to take into account the rather small number of capable Android-running devices out there.  The Droid is just the first device of many of its kind to come that will utilize Android, so we have to give it some time before we jump to any conclusions.  From a business standpoint, however, it's easy to understand where Gameloft is coming from.  They have to go where the money is at, and at this point in time, it's Apple's App Store.

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