Gameloft, the end of a family saga – France Info

March of Empires, Magic Kingdom, Gangstar Vegas … these games names you may speak. Well, they change hands thanks to the success of the hostile takeover bid launched by Vivendi at the instigation of his boss, the businessman Vincent Bolloré.
Eight months of fierce battle. The Guillemot brothers, who created Gameloft 17 years ago, opposed this operation considered purely capitalistic.
Since the birth of the company in 1999, Michel and Yves Guillemot had managed to make the second global publisher of video games for smartphones with 7,000 employees, not less than 4,000 developers and studios located today in twenty countries including the United States, Mexico, China, Japan, etc …

Why the founding family has dropped the case?
It announced yesterday “with regret” that provided most of its shares to Vivendi group because it could not hope to create value from a majority shareholder with which she strongly disagreed. The other shareholders have until June 15 to tender their shares.
In fact, it became the fight of David against Goliath. Vivendi is gradually mounted in the capital by repurchasing the securities to hold to date over 61% and 55% of the voting rights.
Guillemot wanted to keep their independence … in vain. But the game industry is the empire of the creators. The independent corporation very small hands and golden brains could manifest
Vivendi knows something. The group was removed from the video game industry in 2013 with the sale for € 6 billion of its difficult subsidiary American Activision, best known for the hit games Call of Duty or Candy Crash … creative had expressed hostility to the operation.
what is the strategy of Vivendi now?
Vivendi, and his mentor Vincent Bolloré, is the media ogre. Present in the cinema; TV Canal +; internet with Dailymotion; Today video games on phones. Bolloré is also the advertising group Havas and communication. I do not you drawing on the obvious synergies in the era of open data (the opening and exchange of computer data). Gameloft, it is 20 million daily players whose coordinates represent an extraordinary strike force.
Buying Gameloft, Vivendi gets a hold not only on content, but above all the data analysis technology.
next step: Ubisoft, another empire founded by the Guillemot with the equally famous games Prince of Persia, Assassin’s Creed … Rabbids will experience new adventures.