Gameloft made the bold decision to offer the majority of their high quality, full 3D games for purchase through their website alone, forgoing the Android Market and creating headaches for all involved. While certain games like Asphalt HD can be found in the market, Gameloft seemed set on allowing the greater part of their catalog to be purchased via credit card from their website and then downloaded via a link messaged to your phone. As you might imagine, this didn’t work out too well so Gameloft went back to the drawing board and came up with a new way to get games onto your phone.
You will still need to enter a phone number to receive a link to download a game, but now that download comes before purchase as part of a free trial being offered on their Android HD titles. If you like the game, you can choose to purchase it in-app and have the amount charged to your carrier bill. That should clean up some of the fuss, making sure the game is already on your phone before you even buy it and then streamlining billing. Only time will tell if this new method proves to be more successful than previous attempts.
For all the griping about the Android Market, Gameloft is proving that it still remains the easiest and most viable channel for locating and downloading content easily to your phone. Whatever the reason is for Gameloft’s decision, it so far has left a large part of the user base untapped.
[via Android and Me]