Why Gameloft won't use the Android Market and what does VCAST Apps have to do with it?

Keeping on with this weeks trend of talking about Gameloft, at CES 2011 I was talking to the fine folks over at the Verizon booth and the topic of Gameloft came up. A fellow gamer over at the Verizon booth was talking to us and we happen to mention the issue many people have with Gameloft not putting their games up on the market.

While talking about this, some interesting information came up regarding this issue right after we played a little Asphalt 6 on that Acer prototype dual-core tablet that seemed to be everywhere at CES 2011, except in my bags.

The reason Gameloft doesn't put their games on the Android Market? It is a DRM issue. While surely they get to keep 100% of their profit from each sale through the Gameloft storefront, the main issue with why their games are not on the Android Market is because of a clash between DRM policies. While specific details were not given as to what aspects of the Gameloft DRM clash with the Android Market DRM policy, it is not an across-the-board issue. Why is that?

Gameloft has started to release the odd game on GetJar which means it is a DRM issue specific with the Android Market. On top of that, Gameloft is planning to start releasing more games onto Verizon's VCAST App store. That means everyone who uses an Android device on the Verizon network will have access to Gameloft games without having to go through their store. If it was an issue about profit, then this wouldn't be happening with the VCAST App store.

We know a lot of people dislike the fact that Gameloft doesn't publish games on the Android Market and perhaps that will change in the future when the DRM issues are settled, until then though at least Verizon customers will have a second option for getting Gameloft games onto their devices soon. Hopefully this gives everyone a bit more insight as to why they do not publish their games on the Android Market.

Developer Website: Gameloft