GameLoft closes UK operation

Content and web-games outfit GameLoft has closed its UK business after less than a year of operation. Speaking from a pedestal somewhere in the United States, a spokesman claimed that GameLoft sees "no profit perspective in the exploitation of its Internet portal", which is a nice way of saying that their business strategy relied too heavily on non-existant advertising revenue. The company will move to "concentrate on exploiting its game catalogue on a pay per play basis, on the web and interactive TV where strong business opportunities have already been identified". No staff cuts have been mentioned at the US branch, but most if not all of the UK employees have been given the boot. Just before six months of operation, GameLoft booted out most of its content employees worldwide after realising that it had no strategy for financially exploiting their hard work. The company has been in financial difficulties for some time, and was about to move its UK arm out of an expensive "loft" in Guildford to a smaller premises elsewhere in town. The website is still up at the time of writing, with a teary-eyed Article Archive placed prominently on the front page. Nothing has been updated since the 21st of March however, when it is believed all employees were ejected. Plenty of content operations have had to pack their bags recently, as the dotcom bubble burst. Trend-setters BarrysWorld went into voluntary liquidation at the beginning of this month, but were rescued by Electronics Boutique a fortnight ago. Others that have hit the dust recently include Freeloader.com (yesterday), c|net's GameCenter and Gamers.com. All have had interesting ways of describing the cutbacks, but our favourite was Gamers.com, which called the widespread sackings as the removal of "luxuries".