Glu Mobile LLC is an American developer and publisher of mobile games. It was founded as Sorrent in 2001 and acquired Macrospace in 2004. Both companies collectively rebranded as Glu Mobile in 2005. In April 2021, the company was acquired by Electronic Arts.
Glu Mobile was founded as Sorrent in 2001. In December 2004, Sorrent acquired the London-based Macrospace. In June 2005 the merged company created a new corporate name: Glu Mobile.[3] That same year, Greg Ballard replaced Sorrent founder Scott Orr as CEO. In 2006, Glu Mobile acquired iFone and in 2007 it acquired Chinese mobile game producer Beijing Zhangzhong MIG Information Technology Co. Ltd. ("MIG"). In September 2007, Glu announced the launch of Asteroids for mobile phones.[4] In March 2008, Glu acquired San Clemente-based mobile developer Superscape.[5]
In January 2010, Niccolo de Masi joined Glu Mobile as the President and CEO. De Masi was previously CEO at Hands-On Mobile. Since his arrival, Glu has transitioned to a freemium business model focused around Glu's original IP.[citation needed]
On August 2, 2011, Glu acquired Griptonite Games and Blammo Games. Its staff of 200 "approximately double[d]" Glu's internal development capacity.[6][7]
In April 2012, Glu acquired the entire Deer Hunter franchise.[8]
Glu Mobile bought Gamespy Technologies (the entity responsible for GameSpy multiplayer services) from IGN Entertainment in August 2012,[9] and proceeded in December to raise integration costs and shut down servers for many older games, including the Star Wars: Battlefront series, Sniper Elite, Microsoft Flight Simulator X and Neverwinter Nights, with no warning to developers or consumers.[10] GameSpy Technologies remained operational and did not make any announcements of an impending shutdown; the two GameSpy companies were separate entities and only related by name.[11] Glu also shut down online multiplayer servers for several titles on the Nintendo DS and Wii, such as Mario Kart DS, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Mario Kart Wii. Glu shut down the rest of Gamespy effective on May 31, 2014.[12]
On September 3, 2014, PlayFirst was acquired by Glu. The official statement from Glu Mobile CEO Niccolo de Masi read "We are pleased to officially add PlayFirst to the Glu family and look forward to delivering new DASH products to a worldwide audience."[13]
In April 2015, Chinese company Tencent paid $126 million for a 15% stake in Glu Mobile.[14] It had 20.8% as of 2017.[15]
On November 4th, 2016, Glu purchased the mobile app developer Crowdtap buying their mobile games including Covet Fashion.[16]
On December 22, 2016, it was announced that Glu Mobile had acquired the trivia game QuizUp for US$7.5 million. On January 20, 2021, QuizUp was removed from appstores, and on January 21, 2021, it was announced that QuizUp will be discontinued on March 22, 2021. Since then, all purchases are disabled.[17][18]
In November 2016, Nick Earl became CEO. The majority stake of Glu shares are held by institutions: at the start of the third quarter of 2012, institutional ownership was 78% of the outstanding shares according to Google Finance.[19]
Electronic Arts announced in February 2021 that it plans to acquire Glu in a deal estimated at US$2.4 billion.[20][21][22] On the same day of the announcement of the deal, it was revealed that the companies expect the acquisition to close in the second quarter of 2021.[23] In April 2021, EA completed the acquisition of Glu Mobile.[24] Following the shutdown of EA Sports MLB Tap Sports and F1 Mobile Racing mobile games, EA announced it would lay off "a small number of staff" from Glu Mobile.[25] Glu Mobile's 2021 Q4 earnings and revenues surpassed estimates.[26]
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by former Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the designers and programmers responsible for its games as "software artists". EA published numerous games and some productivity software for personal computers, all of which were developed by external individuals or groups until 1987's Skate or Die! The company shifted toward internal game studios, often through acquisitions, such as Distinctive Software becoming EA Canada in 1991.
EA Sports is a division of Electronic Arts that develops and publishes sports video games. Formerly a marketing gimmick of Electronic Arts, in which they imitated real-life sports networks by calling themselves the "EA Sports Network" (EASN) with pictures or endorsements, it soon grew up to become a sub-label on its own, releasing game series such as EA Sports FC, PGA Tour, NHL, NBA Live, and Madden NFL.
GameSpy was an American provider of online multiplayer and matchmaking middleware for video games founded in 1999 by Mark Surfas. After the release of a multiplayer server browser for Quake, QSpy, Surfas licensed the software under the GameSpy brand to other video game publishers through a newly established company, GameSpy Industries, which also incorporated his Planet Network of video game news and information websites, and GameSpy.com.
PopCap Games, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Seattle, and a subsidiary of Electronic Arts. The company was founded in 2000 by John Vechey, Brian Fiete and Jason Kapalka.
The James Bond video game franchise is a series centering on Ian Fleming's fictional British MI6 agent, James Bond. Games of the series have been predominantly shooter games, with some games of other genres including role-playing and adventure games. Several games are based upon the James Bond films and developed and published by a variety of companies, The intellectual property is owned by Danjaq.
EA Mobile Inc. is an American video game development studio of the publisher Electronic Arts (EA) for mobile platforms.
Deer Hunter is a series of hunting simulation video games. Originally available for Windows platform published by WizardWorks, it has since been published on MacOS, Game Boy Color, PlayStation 2, and mobile phones. The first Deer Hunter game was an early success in the casual game market.
Foundation 9 Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game company based in Irvine, California. The company was formed in March 2005 through the merger of video game developers Backbone Entertainment and The Collective.
Scott Orr is an American video game designer best known as the lead designer on the first video game console versions of Madden NFL Football. In 2001, Wired magazine named Orr on its list of "gamemaking gods." Orr‘s career in sports games spans over 20 years.
Steve Cartwright is an American video game designer. He is best known as one of the original Activision game designers, credited with such games as Barnstorming, Megamania, Seaquest and Hacker.
Diner Dash is a strategy and time management video game initially developed by Gamelab and published by PlayFirst. It is now owned and published by Glu Mobile. It was one of the top-selling downloadable games of all time, available in multiple platforms such as PC, Mac, consoles, and mobile.
Diner Dash: Flo on the Go is the third installment to the game series Diner Dash. It is published by PlayFirst and was released in October 2006.
Joel Breton is an American video game producer, video game designer, film producer and entrepreneur. He has worked as a producer on multiple award-winning video games, including Unreal PC, Bomberman Live, and Pirates of the Caribbean. In 2016, Breton became the head of virtual reality content for HTC Vive, where he manages both internal and external content development for the HTC Vive virtual reality platform. In October 2018, Breton premiered the world's first feature length VR film, 7 Miracles, at the Raindance Film Festival, where it won the VR Film of the Festival award. Joel Breton is a member of the Steering Committee for the Academy of International Extended Reality (AIXR), where he works to advance AR/VR technology in the global marketplace.
PlayFirst, Inc. is a Delaware based American publisher of casual games founded in 2004 by industry veterans. PlayFirst produced the Diner Dash series, which won the 2008 Annual Casual Game Awards. and has seen over 550 million downloads. The popularity of Diner Dash series prompted spin-off series like Wedding Dash and Cooking Dash. The company’s game portfolio also includes the retro-style strategy-based Chocolatier series, and the adventure/hidden object-mixing Dream Chronicles series.
Garena is a Singaporean game developer and publisher of free online games. It is the digital entertainment arm of parent company Sea Ltd, which formerly used Garena as the parent company name.
QuizUp is a discontinued mobile game originally developed and published by Iceland-based Plain Vanilla Games and later operated by Glu Mobile. The game was a mobile trivia app similar to the game Trivial Pursuit. QuizUp was a multiplayer game where one user competes against another in seven rounds of timed multiple-choice questions of various topics. There were over 1,200 total topics available to users to choose from, and all the questions were voluntarily submitted by content contributors. Most topics were available in several different languages.
Kill Shot is a mobile first-person shooter game developed by Hothead Games.
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