Right before my senior year of high school, I spent the entire summer saving up to buy an iPad 2. There were many reasons why I wanted the tablet, but one of the biggest reasons was for mobile games. Before owning the iPad, I had played Angry Birds once or twice as well as Fruit Ninja on a friend’s phone. I had no idea that there were genres in mobile games. As a hardcore console and PC gamer, I was happy to find series such as Gangstar or Dungeon Hunter to quench my game thirst. I noticed that these games were all developed by the same studio, Gameloft, so I tucked that thought to the back of my head. Fast forward nearly four years and I was given the opportunity to tour the Montreal headquarters. I knew this was an opportunity I had to jump on.
Once we arrived at the studio, one of the staff members kindly showed us around and gave an in-depth tour of the building. While some studios organize their employees by department or specialties, Gameloft organizes everyone into teams. If you are working on Dungeon Hunter, you sit in a large cluster with your team. The same applies to any of the other game franchises or new IPs. After our tour we went through an overview of the company. Founded in 1999 by Michael Guillemot, Gameloft is a video game developer and publisher with headquarters in Paris, France. The Guillemot brothers also founded the game studio, Ubisoft, which sometimes works closely with Gameloft. The company also has subsidiaries in 28 countries around the world such as China. They have created a number of games for mobile phone handsets, tablets, games consoles and other platforms. At this point in time and for the foreseeable future, Gameloft only develops and releases mobile platform games.
Currently three Champlain College graduates work at Gameloft, which I find incredibly inspiring. Getting a job in the video game industry, especially right after graduation, can be difficult. Seeing the studio and hearing about current employees’ experiences makes me that much more excited to enter the industry one day soon.