Public | |
Traded as | NASDAQ: GLUU |
Industry | Video game industry |
Founded | 2001 | (as Sorrent)
Headquarters | San Francisco, California, U.S. |
Key people
|
Nick Earl (CEO) Eric Ludwig (EVP & CFO) Tim Wilson ( CTO) Matt Ricchetti (President of Studios) Greg Cannon (VP of Finance) Jesse Taylor (SVP of Studios) Harry Liu (VP of 3rd Party Publishing) Scott Leichtner (VP & General Counsel) |
Revenue | $223.1 million |
Subsidiaries |
PlayFirst Plain Vanilla Games Griptonite |
Website | www |
Glu Mobile, Inc. (also known as Glu Games, stylised as glu) is a developer and publisher of mobile games for smartphone and tablet devices. Founded in San Francisco, California, in 2001 as Sorrent, Glu has since taken up office in a few countries. Glu offers products to multiple platforms including iOS, Android, Amazon, Windows Phone and Google Chrome.
In December 2004, San Mateo, California-based Sorrent merged with London-based Macrospace. In June 2005 the merged company created a new corporate entity titled Glu. 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 Mobile announced the launch of Asteroids for mobile phones. In March 2008 Glu Mobile acquired San Clemente-based mobile developer Superscape.
In January 2010, Niccolo de Masi joined Glu Mobile as the President and CEO. Mr. 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.
On August 2, 2011, Glu Mobile acquired Griptonite Games. Its staff of 200 "approximately doubles" Glu's internal development capacity.
Glu Mobile bought Gamespy Technologies (the entity responsible for GameSpy multiplayer services) from IGN Entertainment in August 2012, 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, much to the outrage of communities of those games. GameSpy Technologies remains operational and has not made any announcements of a pending shutdown; the two GameSpy companies were separate entities and only related by name. Glu mobile is also responsible for shutting 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, causing much controversy and anger. Glu shut down the rest of Gamespy effective on May 31, 2014.