Much of the work of mobile game distribution outfit Flexion in recent months has involved doing deals with content companies such as EA and OEMs like Sony Ericsson and Nokia.

Filling in the other segment of its embedded ecosystem play, however, is a new global deal with Orange.

This will see Flexion wrapper technology used to pre-load Android and Java games on all Orange devices.

Quick, easy

The advantage for Orange is that the wrapper is applied to complete games, enabling different business models such as rental, try-before-you-buy and timed demos, as well as providing the ability to vary prices over time depending on local markets.

In a similar vein, Flexion supports global localisation, removing the need for country-specific versions and enabling Orange's local operations to select whichever language options they want.

The result is a solution that significantly reduces Orange's QA and testing overhead compared to processing bespoke lite or demo versions, as well as speeding up turnaround times.

The deal follows on from Orange's adoption of Flexion since 2010 to pre-load games on its signature devices in the UK, France, Switzerland, Poland and Portugal.

Going global

"We chose Flexion as the enabling partner for our Signature Preload programme based on its proven track record," commented Jean-François Rodriguez, director, games and transmedia, Orange Group

"Orange has always taken a proactive approach to games retailing and has seen consistent growth within the segment. Using wrapped full versions of games for preloads was the natural next step for us and will allow us to grow the penetration of mobile games even further."

"Orange is the first global operator to launch Flexion and its requirements gave us the chance to implement the full capabilities of the Flexion platform," added Jens Lauritzson, Flexion's CEO.

"The mobile landscape is changing as some consumers are becoming very content-savvy, while others are just entering the market. Therefore the ability to offer retail solutions such as multiple price points, as well as increased exposure to content, is imperative to grow the market further."

Flexion has a user base of 70 million customers, and is growing by around 10 million user per month thanks to recent deals with Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Indiagames.