Gameloft makes select games available for direct download, not available on Android Market

In an odd smart move, Gameloft has passed on the Android Market, and brought 10 of its games to its own website available for direct download. The games available on the website are only for higher-end Android devices such as the Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Droid, and Nexus One, and completely bypasses the official Android app store in favor a direct-to-consumer model.

Downloading applications outside of the Android Market takes a little more work on the user’s end, but it’s not at all hard. User’s must go into the setting of their devices, and enable downloads from ‘unknown sources’ to be able to download outside of the Market. From their you can download applications and install them to your Android phone at will. With applications like Linda File Manager, enabling the ‘unknown sources’ will allow a user to download any sort of file type, as long as the microSD card has ample space available. The option to download applications outside of the Android Market can appeal to developers who want to give out a beta application to testers without releasing it into the market place.

In an email to Wired.com, vice president of publishing, Baudouin Corman said that the company thinks Android is still in its early stages, and they want to make their games available in more than one place to find the ‘optimal system’ for users to get access to their games. He would be right. Android still has ways to go to get the saturation of games that the iPhone AppStore now enjoys. Newer, more high-end Android devices should appeal more to developers that want to write a graphics intensive game for the platform. Those devices can’t come soon enough.

Corman also mentioned that the company has released 30 different titles in the Android Market. Unfortunately, with my Nexus One (running the Sense UI, I might add), a “Gameloft” search only returns 10 results. Same with my MyTouch 3G. While titles like Asphalt, and Assassin’s Creed show up in the search, a lot of the games are a little less appealing – that is, unless you like Uno… a lot. For more appealing games like Iron Man 2, Avatar, and Spider-Man Toxic City, you’ll have to go to the Gameloft website in order to download them.

I think it’s a smart move for the company. They aren’t locked into the Android Market like they are with Apple (NSDQ: AAPL)’s App Store, so trying to get come extra cash from a different place seems like a logical step. Gameloft had reported that they sell about 400 times more games on the iPhone than Android. If Android doesn’t get its fragmentation issues sorted out, I wouldn’t expect this to change anytime soon.