Gameloft S.E.

Gameloft is a French company established on 1 December 1999 as Gameloft.com S.A. On 30 November 2001, the name was changed to Gameloft S.A. The company was founded as a partnership between Ubi Soft (game development and publishing) and Guillemot Corporation (multimedia products), with seven people from the Guillemot family as shareholders. It was formed with the aim to develop, publish and distribute games and product for mobile devices and interactive television.

On 1 October 2001, the whole of Ludigames S.A. (another company set up by the Guillemot family) merged with Gameloft S.A. and was absorbed into that company. Michel Guillemot took over the managing roles of the new fused company from his brother Gérard Guillemot. The merger was needed because Gameloft could not create the needed profit based on web activities (66,600,000 € net loss in the fiscal year 2001) and Ludigames, despite the larger scope with PDA and SMS), was not profitable either. After the merger, some but not all of Ludigames' many offices became Gameloft divisions. By June 2003, Gameloft employed 110 people at eight subsidiaries:

• Gameloft S.A. (France)
• Jeuxvideo.com (France)
• Gameloft Inc. (USA)
• Gameloft Divertissements Inc. (Canada)
• Gameloft.com AG (Germany)
• Gameloft Ltd. (United Kingdom)
• Gameloft GmbH (Germany)
• Gameloft Iberica S.A. (Spain)
• Gameloft Srl (Romania)

Some offices were closed as well: Gameloft.com Ltd. (UK), Gameloft.com Srl (Italy) and Gameloft KK (Japan, formerly Ludigames KK).

After the merger Gameloft gave web products as the sole focus a lower priority and quickly went on to define its core business as JAVA and BREW game titles. With Ubisoft as an important partner, many of Gameloft's mobile games are based on popular franchises such as Rayman, Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia and Assassin's Creed.

Much of the work was done in office in Eastern Europe and China. Some of these divisions include:

• Gameloft Bulgaria EOOD
• Gameloft China
• Gameloft Software Pvt. Ltd. (sold to Ubisoft Entertainment SA in 2008)

The company also owns and maintains jeuxvideo.com - a popular French games website.

By July 2007, Ubisoft disposed of the 18.89% interest it owned in Gameloft to Calyon, investment bank, under an equity swap agreement. On 1 June 2016, Gameloft was acquired by the French mass media company Vivendi through a hostile takeover by acquiring Ubisoft's stakes in the company.