法国电信运营商Orange为何要开发《伦比群岛》（Lambi Island）这款免费的iPhone游戏？Orange未来的业务与手机游戏又会有什么交集？

日前，Orange公司的手机内容开发团队主管Ashraf Hegab在采访中介绍了《伦比群岛》这款游戏的相关开发背景。

Lambi Island

在加入Orange团队之前，Hegab曾在英国游戏公司Codemasters的伯明翰工作室负责掌机游戏开发工作，他告诉记者，“为什么一个运营商也要开发游戏？我的上司也提过这个问题，但我很难作出回答……当然，运营商并不一定要开发游戏，但我们想为用户创造有趣的娱乐体验，orange有许多用户，我们希望可以通过游戏为用户提供更优质的服务。”

《伦比群岛》是一款风格与《ChuChu Rocket》相似的球类益智物理游戏，在原型设计完成后又进行了一些改动，增加了更多彩的颜色和更可爱的角色。

Hegab表示，“当时市场营销总监去休假了，当他回来的时候，我们的游戏调整已经完工，他在项目会议上露面说的第一句话就是：我真喜欢这些小球”。

另外值得一提的是，在这种典型的刻板企业氛围中，这款游戏的开发仍汇集了不少新创意。据Hegab所称，“将企业环境与游戏融合起来可是一项新挑战。我们开发游戏时在办公室发出的一些嘈杂的声音引起了其他团队的好奇，他们都想来看看我们在干啥，这样就在无形中促进了同事之间的交流。”

Lambi Island

游戏的原型设计差不多用了一个月时间，开发团队创建了自己的引擎和工具，并没有使用Unity等现成的开发软件，因为他们认为这种方法更有助于理解游戏开发的最基本原理。

《伦比群岛》使用了OpenFeint平台的社交功能，但除了创建Facebook页面和发布新闻通稿，这款游戏并没有正式向Orange的50万名iPhone、iPad用户推广，更不用说向更大范围的玩家普及了。

Hegab对此解释道，“我们在Orange英国门户网站上增加了这款游戏的链接，等到推出更新版本时还会展开短信宣传活动。”

目前Orange方面还没有公布该游戏的下载量，但已经准备推出本土化的法语版本，而且针对Ovi、Windows Phone 7的投放计划也已经提上了日程表，可见这款游戏已经取得初步成功。

Hegab表示，“虽然很难将游戏与企业文化融到一块，但我想告诉Orange公司，游戏就是未来，我很爱这一行……我们正寻找富有创意的公司进行游戏开发合作，请继续关注我们。”（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Develop Liverpool: Why Orange made an iPhone game, and what it learned in the process

In an entertaining talk entitled Developing a games culture in the corporate world, Ashraf Hegab from Orange’s content labs spoke about why the telecoms giant developed Lambi Island, a free iPhone game.

And how it was hoping to interact with the mobile games industry in future.

“Why should an operator make games? That’s what my bosses ask me. It’s a hard question to answer,” said Hegab, who previously work at Codemasters’ Birmingham studio on consoles games before joining Orange.

“Of course, operators shouldn’t make games, but we want our customers to have an enjoyable experience.

“We want our customers to have a more connected experience. We have a lot of customers, and we want to make our customers happy.”

“We want to use games to make the services we offer our customers better.”

Island from the ground up

As for Lambi Island, the ChuChu Rocket-style puzzle game actually started out as a ball-based physics game. Prototyping resulted in a switch to more colourful and cute characters however.

“The marketing director went on holiday. When he came back, we’d changed the game. The first thing he said in our progress meeting was ‘I really liked the balls’,” Hegab recalled.

And more widely, one of the key results of making the game was mixing the creativity required in such a process within the typical straight-laced corporate environment.

“Mixing up corporates and games people creates new type of challenges,” Hegab said.

“We found that the strange noises made when you’re making games created a buzz around the office. People outside of the group got interested in what we were doing. It improved office communications.”

The future’s Orange

Prototyping took around a month, with the content team building its own engine and tools rather than using off-the-shelf software such as Unity in order to understand the issues involved with developing from scratch.

It did use the OpenFeint gaming platform to explore social features, but aside from setting up a Facebook page and sending out a press release, the game wasn’t officially marketed to the 500,000 Orange customers who have an iPhone or an iPad, let alone beyond.

“We put a link to the game on the Orange UK portal, and we’re planning SMS campaign for the update,” Hegab said.

Download figures haven’t been announced, but the project has been successful enough that a localised French version will be released, and Ovi and Window Phone 7 releases are also planned.

“It can be hard to mix up games with the corporate culture, but I’m trying to tell Orange that gaming is the future, and I’m also keen to work with industry.

“We’re looking for innovative companies to work with in terms of showing what games can be,” Hegab ended. “Get in touch.”（source:pocketgamer）