游戏邦注：本文作者为Pocketgamer撰稿人Guest Author，文章中他以Neon Play首席执行官Oli Christie的角度叙述了手机游戏工作室成立过程的经验和教训。

Oli Christie

Oli Christie是Neon Play首席执行官。他任职InboxDMG期间开发的200多款病毒式传播flash游戏，荣获25项行业表彰，InboxDMG公司的顾客包括Gillette、Panasonic、Pringles和Jeep。

文中Oli Christie将讲述其从成立工作室当中收获的经验，以及公司如何凭借《Paper Glider》和《Flick Football》等热门游戏在短短10个月内实现下载量从零至1500万的突破。

Paper Glider

萌生创办工作室灵感

为什么要成立手机游戏工作室呢？

去年6月我反问了自己这个问题。我曾开发过许多网络Flash游戏，但我从未接触过手机游戏，更别提在自己年代久远的诺基亚手机上体验《Snake》和《Backgammon》之外的游戏。其中需要学习的内容将会十分庞大。

首当其冲的问题（也是个大问题）是我孤军奋战。

我没有合作伙伴，没有专业技术知识，也没有聘请员工。因此，我无法真正意义上制作一款游戏。但我开始着手准备成立工作室的相关工作，那就是为工作室取名字。

公司命名

当你打算成立一家公司，公司名字有了之后，你就会觉得自己好像前进了一大步，所以我绞尽脑汁，想尽了各种各样的名字，最早进入我脑海的词语是NEON，这看起来似乎是个不错的名字，所以接下来就是找个补充的词汇，让公司看起来像个专业而有趣的游戏工作室。

另一个重要的工作就是检查词语的URL是否已经存在，相关域名的稀少程度着实令人难以置信。但最后，我突然想到了Neon Play，然后就快速将其输入.com和.co.uk地址栏当中。

我同时在Facebook和Twitter注册了neonplay页面，完成用户群的覆盖工作，虽然目前页面上并没有提供任何信息。

工作室人员招募

我联络了一位老同事，要他负责设计公司商标、品牌、商业名片和网站。

这是个令我着迷的有趣过程，自从有了商标和网站（游戏邦注：该公司的网站为www.neonplay.com）后，我渐渐觉得我们开始步入轨道，现在我需要招人开发公司的首款游戏，我需要一位开发人员，而且十万火急。

所以我在网上刊登了招聘启事：一个终身职位，急聘iPhone游戏开发人员。我对职位的描述显然有些夸大其词，但我明白我必须得让自己的招聘启事在网站中脱颖而出。

巧的是，一位名叫Mark的高级管理人员应聘了这个职位（事实上，他是申请该职位的唯一人员）。

他刚从美国回来，并且曾在Midway Games担任重要职位。此外他还曾在切尔滕纳姆的Acclaim公司呆过几年。所以他在掌机领域经验丰富（游戏邦注：他曾参与《Crazy Taxi》和《TNA Wrestling》的制作）。我们见面小酌了一下，聊得很愉快。

和我一样，Mark从未接触过手机游戏，但Mark在掌机游戏方面富有经验，而我也曾推出了系列Flash游戏，这可能对公司开发顶级手机游戏有所帮助。

游戏开发阶段

所以我们开始坐下来讨论公司首款游戏的雏形。由于世界杯的即将来临，因此足球游戏具备持久潜力，我们认为公司的首款iPhone游戏应该以足球比赛为主题。

我们的游戏采用这样的模式：玩家需要沿着球场以特定角度抛出足球以获得积分（游戏邦注：游戏效仿《Bend it like Beckham》机制），我们将游戏命名为《Flick Football》。

flick football scamp

所以，Mark和一同坐在我家的餐桌，试着将游戏具体化。我们边构思边绘制游戏草图。同时我聘请了一名兼职美工和兼职3D技术人员，分别负责设计游戏界面，及创建游戏场地和动画人物。

此外，我们还聘请了另一名兼职音效师，同时我邀请我的一位朋友负责注释方面的工作。远距离管理员工确实有些棘手，这使我深深明白，我得为我们的小工作室里组建一个共同工作的团队，这样工作起来会简单得多，同时更富有乐趣。

游戏发行阶段

《Flick Football》携手游戏门户网站Miniclip.com同大众见面。游戏成为世界杯期间的一大亮点，荣登英国游戏榜单第8名。

Flick Football

继这款99美分游戏推出后，我们又推出了《Flick Football Lite》（游戏邦注：这款游戏采用的是先体验后购买的免费模式），这款游戏随后又推出了iPhone/iPad版本，而该版本出乎意料地成为2010年排名第2的可下载iPad游戏。

这是个很好的开端，我们早于预期实现创收，我们因此能够立即额外聘请一名美工和开发人员。

现金流转对于私营初创公司来说十分重要。我们从中学到很多。但我们都还是手机游戏领域的新手，我们瞄准的是庞大而拥挤的手机游戏市场。但我们已经开始起飞！（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Neon Play’s Oli Christie on starting a mobile games studio: the lessons and lesions

by Guest Author 

Oli Christie, CEO of Neon Play, has won 25 industry awards for his 200+ viral flash games during his time at InboxDMG, working for clients ranging from Gillette, Panasonic, Pringles and Jeep.

Here he tells us what he’s learned from setting up a new mobile studio and how he went from zero to 15 million downloads in 10 months with hits such as Paper Glider and Flick Football.

How the hell do you start a mobile games studio?

That was the question I asked myself back in June 2010. I’d made lots of internet Flash games, but I’d never made a mobile game, let alone played many except Snake and Backgammon on my old Nokia. The learning curve would be gargantuan.

The initial problem (and it was a big one) was that I was flying solo.

I had no partner, no technical skills and no staff. Therefore I couldn’t actually make a game. But I set about forming the foundations of my new games studio by coming up with a name.

The important bit

When you start any company, once you have a actual name, it feels like you can move forward, so I brainstormed all sorts of names. One word that came to mind very early on was the word NEON – it just felt like a good name, so it was then a matter of finding a complementary word that would make it sound like a professional, but fun games studio.

The other vital thing is whether the URL is available and it’s incredible how few domains are. But eventually I struck upon Neon Play and snapped up the .com and .co.uk addresses in double-quick time.

I also very quickly nabbed the Facebook and Twitter pages for /neonplay so I had all my bases covered, even though I had nothing to actually put on them.

Might make some games in a bit

I contacted an old colleague of mine who set about designing a logo, brand, business cards and a website.

This is a fun process that I love and once we had a logo and a website (www.neonplay.com), I really felt that I was on my way… except for the fact that I needed someone to make my first game – I needed a developer, and super fast.

So I posted a job ad on a recruitment site saying; “Opportunity of a lifetime! iPhone games developer needed”. I might have been over-egging the opportunity a tad, but knew I had to make it stand out on the job boards.

And as luck would have it, a top man called Mark applied for the job (in fact, he was the only person who applied for the job).

He had just returned from the States where he was a big cheese at Midway Games, plus he’d spent a few years at Acclaim in Cheltenham, so he had some superlative experience in the console world with games like Crazy Taxi and TNA Wrestling. And we met for a pint and got on extremely well.

Like me, Mark had also never made a mobile game, but Mark’s big console game experience and my small Flash game experience would hopefully combine to create some tip-top mobile games.

Almost making games now

So we sat down and discussed what our first game would be. And with the World Cup approaching and soccer games having long term potential, we thought that our first iPhone game should be a football game.

And we chose a game where you had to bend the ball around the wall to score, in a kind of Bend it like Beckham fashion. We called it Flick Football (iTunes link).

So Mark and I sat at my kitchen table and tried to flesh out the game. We wireframed as we went along (not the best idea), used a freelance artist to design the game interface, and a freelance 3D guy who was created the stadium and the animated players.

On top of that, we had another freelance audio man on the job, and I got a friend of mine to do the commentary. It was certainly tricky to manage all these people remotely and made it clear to me that I would want to get a team all working in the same studio – it’s easier and it’s more fun.

They made a game!

Flick Football launched, in partnership with games portal Miniclip.com, and it became a super-smash during the World Cup, peaking at number 8 in the UK charts.

Soon after the 59p paid game launched, we unleashed Flick Football Lite (iTunes link) as a free, try before you buy version and then launched a universal iPhone/iPad version as well, which incredibly went on to become the number 2 downloaded iPad app of 2010.

It was a great start, the revenue started to roll in much earlier than we could have dreamed of and it enabled us to take on an artist and another developer straight away.

Cashflow certainly was king for a young, privately funded studio. We’d learnt a lot already, but were still complete novices, taking our first steps into a huge, overcrowded marketplace. But we had lift off!（Source：Pocketgamer）