Before the App Store, a mobile game reached you through your phone carrier's menu, and Glu sold through more than 150 carriers and distributors. Its catalog included Diner Dash, Monopoly, Sonic the Hedgehog and World Series of Poker, squeezed onto small screens and keypads. The San Mateo company filed to go public in late 2006. Three months after its March 2007 offering, Apple released the first iPhone, and the business of mobile games began to change.

Cyent, Sorrent, Glu

The company was incorporated in May 2001 as Cyent Studios and became Sorrent later that year, before taking the Glu name. It licensed famous brands and built games that could run on hundreds of different phone models. The bet was that phones would become the world's largest game console, and that a publisher with strong brands and carrier deals would win the shelf space on every handset.

The Kardashian Years

Glu priced its offering at $11.50 a share in March 2007 and listed on Nasdaq. The iPhone and Android moved games from carriers to app stores, and Glu had to rebuild around free-to-play games. Its 2014 hit Kim Kardashian: Hollywood brought in huge revenue from in-game purchases. Later hits included Design Home. In April 2021 Electronic Arts bought Glu for about $2.4 billion.

Cover: Chrysanthemum festival, from the series "Precious Children's Games of the Five Festivals (Kodakara gosetsu asobi)", Torii Kiyonaga. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for children at play (games for everyone).