因为ngmoco的《We Rule》、The Playforge的《僵尸农场》等游戏的大受热捧，以及Glu Mobile、Capcom等工作室转向免费运营模式，iOS手机社交游戏在2010年实现了突飞猛进的发展。

位于纽约的手机社交游戏工作室Astro Ape也是由此受益的公司之一，但与其他工作室不同，Astro Ape的三名联合创始人均来自常规的企业而非游戏领域。该公司首席执行官Chieh Huang在最近的媒体采访中介绍了他们走进手机社交游戏领域的始末。以下是游戏邦编译的访谈内容：

Office Heroes

为何认为当时是跳槽的正确时机，并从常规的工作岗位走向手机社交游戏开发领域？

我们几人当时都很不满意自己的工作现状，也很清楚自己还有其他特长。当时Chris的工作就是在高盛公司整理冗长的电子表格，他的电子表格排版非常美观，色彩搭配总是恰到好处，因为他骨子里其实非常热爱美术。

Will当时是一个企业编程解决方案的咨询师，但一到晚上他就在《魔兽世界》等游戏中大把挥霍。他在11岁月时就为AOL编写了踢人的程序，没错，他就是传说中的把别人踢出聊天室的管理员。

我自己当时在一家与法律有关的大型企业上班，但晚上大部分时间都在用PS3玩《使命召唤》，或者阅读市场财经新闻，思考经济衰退可能给哪些新兴企业的崛起打开门路。

Chris和Will后来就辞职创建了第一款游戏《办公室英雄》（Office Heroes），他们打电话邀我入伙，然后我也进入了社交游戏的圈子，并开始意识到我们可以一起成就一番事业。

你们为何专门选择手机平台？

我们的工作室刚刚起步时，大家都很流行开发Facebook游戏，几乎人人都在涌向这个领域。但问题就是，几乎所有人都在做这件事，也就难免产生激烈的竞争。我们觉得苹果App Store这个平台很难找到高质量的社交游戏，所以认为这应该是我们领先的机会。

我们三人都惊叹智能手机的发展潜力，也知道用户的手机使用习惯在短短一年中发生了巨变，过去我们只能在电脑前完成的事情，现在都可以在智能手机上实现。

Twitter的手机应用程序就可以说明这一点，对我个人来说，如果坐在电脑前登陆Twitter帐号就会是一个很奇怪的举动。就种转变的趋势不会减缓，游戏领域也不例外，现在越来越多玩家都在玩智能手机游戏，而不是坐在电脑前投入大量时间体验游戏。

我们的这个决策在当时比较有风险，但现在手机游戏已经开始腾飞，我们也终于发现自己没有押错赌注。

经营一家游戏工作室有多困难？

运营任何一家企业都会很困难，不管是经营一个热狗摊子，还是一家身价数十亿美元的大企业，这个道理都是一样的。

但运营一家游戏公司的真正挑战在于人事因素。我们招聘的都是极有才华、非常有创意的人员。要驾驭他们的创意，调动所有人的激情、想法和技能，并让大家站到统一战线上最为困难，但这也正是我工作中最有趣的一部分。

我们公司实际上聚集了形形色色的纽约客，有时尚潮人，律师、程序员、动画师、金融人才，也有寡言少语只有涉及代码的话题才肯启齿的开发人员。因为背景不同，大家的交流也会撞出不少有趣的火花。

日本DeNA公司为何会向你们投资，这笔投资是否改变了你们的发展方向？

《办公室英雄》发布之后就登上了苹果iTunes首页的推荐版面，DeNA发现了这款游戏，并认为我们开发的是真正适合智能手机平台的游戏。这家日本手机社交游戏巨头后来就给我们打电话，询问是否愿意与其共同合作。

他们的投资确实促进了我们的发展，也让我们的一些计划变得更加可行。

Will的最大愿望之一就是，将我们的办公室撤出他母亲的房子，然后搬到曼哈顿。我们都知道纽约还有丰富的人才资源，所以我们得尽快完成这件事。

Dessert Heroes

你们已经发布了《办公室英雄》和《甜点英雄》（Dessert Heroes），在这个过程中对社交游戏用户有何了解？

我们发现无论是哪个平台，哪种类型的娱乐产品，只要是质量高、能够提供出色体验的内容，都能赢得用户青睐。这也正是我们的作品为何会广受用户、平台发行商欢迎的最重要原因。

虽然这听起来只是一个基本常识，但我认为今天的社交游戏领域有点缺乏这种意识。用户访问我们的游戏，只是因为他们喜欢玩这些游戏，而不是因为我们向他们强塞邀请信息、请求或者提供其他诱惑。

这一点对你们的新游戏《Monsterz Revenge》有何影响？

我认为它首先影响了我们的招聘决策。即使我们不投入任何市场营销预算，只要游戏质量过硬，用户还是会对我们的游戏表现出好感。我们很重视这一点，并从一些顶级的动画工作室挖来一些出色的人才，不断提升我们的游戏质量。

《Monsterz Revenge》是公司新成员的集体智慧结晶，也是我们通过《办公室英雄》、《甜点英雄》总结出的成功经验，它是我们目前最好的作品。

能否提供一些准确的数据，说明你们游戏的受欢迎程度？

我们不便透露具体细节，只能说就算我们只投入一点市场营销预算，也可以实现数百万次的下载量。

最让我们吃惊的数据是，我们的用户留存率接近70%，玩家在几周后仍然会持续访问游戏。

Zynga、Pocket Gems、Storm8等具有雄厚实力或者强大背景的公司现在也进军这一市场了，你们如何与之竞争？

众所皆知，这些公司都有数百万甚至数十亿美元的市场营销预算，但对我们来说，最重要的是开发质量更高的产品。

我们的游戏曾获得苹果推荐，并得到DeNA这家世界顶级社交游戏公司的认可，我们的美术风格、UI和游戏机制也屡屡被其他产品“借鉴”，所以我们自信有能力应对其他公司的挑战。

对这个市场在2011年的发展有何看法？

这是很有意义的一年，科技行业关注的重心转向了智能手机及手机设备。无论何时，只要科技还在发展，就一定会催生许多创新和有趣的事物。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Astro Ape’s Chieh Huang on making better social games than Zynga, Pocket Gems and Storm8

2010 was the year social mobile gaming took off on iOS, thanks to titles such as ngmoco’s We Rule and The Playforge’s Zombie Farm.

As well as encouraging the likes of Glu Mobile and Capcom to change their business models, the success kickstarted a new wave of start ups.

One such is New York-based Astro Ape Studios, which was set up by three refugees from the corporate world.

We caught up with CEO Chieh Huang to find out what it’s like living the game development dream.

PocketGamer: Why did you decide the time was right to leave your normal jobs and join the crazy world of social game development?

Chieh Huang: None of us were entirely happy with our day jobs and we knew we had complementary skillsets. At the time, Chris was crunching numbers in mile-long spreadsheets at Goldman Sachs. His spreadsheets were always beautifully laid out and colour-coordinated because deep down, he had a real passion for art.

Will was programming enterprise solutions as a consultant, but at night, he was spending money like a docked pirate on games such as World of Warcraft. He started programming punters for AOL back when he was 11; yes, he was that guy that was punting people from the chatrooms.

As for me, I was grinding it out at a large law firm, but was spending most of the night either smack-talking into my PS3 mic during Call of Duty benders, or reading market news and thinking that the recession was going to pave the way for a new breed of companies to spring up.

Chris and Will quit their jobs to begin building our first game Office Heroes. They gave me a call, and I looked at the social gaming landscape and knew we could do something big together.

Why did you decide to specialise in mobile?

Around the time when we blasted off with Astro Ape, developing Facebook games was the sexy thing to do – absolutely everyone was doing it. However, therein lies the real problem: absolutely everyone was doing it. We looked at the Apple App Store and couldn’t find any high quality social games, so we thought there was a real opportunity to be ahead of the curve.

All three of us were also amazed at growing capabilities of smartphones. We could see that user behavior was shifting and that in a year, much of what we were used to doing in front of a computer was mainly going to be done on a smartphone.

You already see this with apps like Twitter. For me, it’s already feeling strange to sit down and log into Twitter via a desktop. This shift will inevitably continue, and in a way, it has for gaming. More and more gamers are spending the bulk of their play sessions on a smartphone, rather than in front of a desktop.

It was a risky bet at the time, but now that mobile is beginning to take off, we’re starting to see that bet pay off.

How hard is it dealing with the business side of running a game studio?

The business side of running any venture is going to be tough. I think that’s true of every business – from running a hot dog cart to powering a billion-dollar company.

However, the real challenging part of running a gaming company is the human element. All the folks we recruit are highly talented, and even more creative. To be able to harness that creativity, to balance it with everyone’s passion, ideas and skillsets, and to do it in a way where everyone is on the same page is the toughest, yet most fun part of my job.

Our company is really a cross-section of New York. We have fashionistas, hipsters, lawyers, programmers, animators, finance guys and some devs that just don’t like to speak unless it’s about code – all in a 2,500 square foot studio with no walls. That makes for some interesting water-cooler conversations.

How did the DeNA investment come about, and how has that changed the company’s direction?

When Office Heroes was released, it was featured on the front page of iTunes. DeNA saw that, played the game and liked that we were building great games purely for smartphones. Since the company dominates mobile social gaming in Japan, they gave us a ring to see how we could work together.

Their investment really supercharged our company; things that were on our wish-list became attainable.

On top of Will’s list was for us to move the company out of his mom’s house and into Manhattan. We all knew that there was a wealth of untapped talent in New York and we had to get in ASAP. (His mom is going to kill him when she reads this!)

You’ve released Office Heroes and Dessert Heroes so what have you learned about the social audience?

We’ve learned that no matter the platform or genre of entertainment, audiences appreciate a high quality, polished user experiences. At the end of the day, that’s what makes our titles so well received by both consumers and platform publishers.

It sounds like a basic concept, but I think it’s getting lost a bit today in social gaming. Our users come into our apps because they want to play our games, not because we spam them with invites, requests and other offers.

How has that influenced your new game Monsterz Revenge?

I think it first influenced our recruiting efforts. We saw that even with a non-existent marketing budget, users were responding well to our games because of their inherent quality. We took this knowledge and sought out veterans from top flight animation studios to up the quality of our games even more.

Monsterz Revenge is really a convergence of this new stream of talent that we’ve brought in, and the lessons we learned from Office Heroes and Dessert Heroes. It’s definitely our best title to date.

Can you provide any figures about how popular your games are?

We can’t get into too much detail, but even with a tiny marketing budget by today’s standards, we’ve seen millions of downloads.

But the real eye-opening statistic for us is that we’ve seen user retention edging close to 70 percent, even weeks after users began playing.

How do you operate within such a competitive market when everyone from Zynga to Pocket Gems, Storm8 etc are all chasing the same casual eyeballs and wallets?

It’s no secret that all those companies have millions and even billions of dollars to spend on marketing budgets. For us, at the end of the day, we believe that we build a better product.

After having our games independently featured, receiving external validation from one of the largest social gaming companies in the world and having our art style, UI and game mechanics ‘borrowed’ at times, we’re confident in our ability to compete and to stay ahead of the curve.

How do you think this market will develop and mature during 2011?

This is the year that things will really get interesting. There has been a huge shift of attention in technology towards smartphones and mobile devices, generally. Whenever that has happened in the history of technology, innovation and fun things have usually followed.（source:pocketgamer）