This may surprise some: even if you've launched a few successful titles, it won't be easier to develop and run a popular game.
At Supercell, we've been very fortunate to release 5 best-selling titles: Cartoon Farm, Clash of Clans, Island Raiders, Clash Royale, and Brawl. To date, the games have accumulated more than 5 billion downloads, averaged 250 million players per month, and accumulated more than $1 billion — including $10 billion in revenue from Clash of Clans and Clash Royale. When we started the company in 2010, it was an achievement we couldn't even dream of.
But one undeniable fact is that our game growth has slowed down over the past few years. Plus, we haven't launched a new game since Red Dead Redemption hit the global market in December 2018.
Why is that? In search of answers to our questions, we talked deeply within the company and decided to change the way we think and approach certain things. Here, I would like to share some of our thought processes, and the actions that come with them. I hope this open letter gives you a better understanding of where Supercell is headed and the plans we have in place to better serve our players.
01
Supercell's dream
As a company, how should Supercell improve itself? First, we need to look at the mission statement, which is our dream: to create games that as many players as possible will play for years on end and will always be remembered. Around this dream, we begin to rethink many of our preconceived notions.
We came to the conclusion that in order to continue chasing our dreams, we need to do more for our players. We've noticed that in recent years we've been so bound by old ideas that in some cases we can't best serve our players.
This is absolutely not desirable, as Supercell would cease to exist without players. At Supercell, we want to create experiences where players are willing to devote their valuable leisure time, so no matter what topic is discussed, we should put the player and player experience first.
02
Small team and my big mistake
How can I better serve my players and do more for them? In order to achieve this goal, we have had to face several interesting conflicts.
The first conflict is closely related to team size, especially the size of online gaming teams. As we all know, Supercell has always been accustomed to having small teams develop games. In our opinion, Supercell's ability to create 5 popular games is that top talent, luck and streamlined team size are all indispensable key factors.
Small teams tend to be keen on innovation, willing to take bigger risks, and react and act faster because there are fewer chefs in the kitchen and processes are streamlined. It's all great when you're trying to develop a new game from scratch.
Development teams need to take risks. Once successful, many companies can easily fall into the trap of going back to the old ways. To truly innovate, we need to be humble and open-minded, take risks, and face unknown outcomes. If we do that, we're likely to fail frequently, but we can learn a lot from it, become stronger, and ultimately reap great successes. I've always believed that companies don't fail because they take risks, and that stopping risks is what causes companies to fail. We also remind ourselves that we should return to the habit of opening champagne to celebrate failure.
But once a game goes into beta testing and the team becomes an online game team, things change. Suddenly, the team's priorities are no longer innovation, but rather serving millions of players, and need to ensure that it is done in a healthy, sustainable way that doesn't cause team members to overwork.
We realized we made the mistake of getting new game teams and online game teams to think in exactly the same way. In some extreme cases, we cling to the slogan 'small team' because it's part of the company culture, without realizing that truly serving the players should be a premise of the culture.
At the end of the day, of course, this was my fault. As CEO, I should have challenged our existing mindset and culture because, as I wrote in my corporate culture paper a few years ago, "What gets us where we are today doesn't necessarily ensure that we're going into the future." "I realized I was stuck in a mindset, bound by past thoughts... Of the many mistakes I've made in my career, this was definitely one of the most significant and I will always remember. Considering that Supercell celebrates a culture of celebrating failure, it means I deserve a big bottle of champagne!
Today, when we consider the appropriate size of a team, we no longer simply use the word "small." What size is the most appropriate size for a team? It depends on what type of game the team is developing (or operating) and at what stage the project is at. We are also continuing to learn, trying to find the right balance between "small" and "doing more". So far, our answer has been to equip online gaming teams with slightly larger teams, develop better and smarter tools and technologies, build stronger outsourcing pipelines, and think outside the box around Supercell's MAKE platform. In our opinion, if a team has "20-35 people", then its size is already quite large.
I want to make it clear that these changes do not affect our perception of the most important pillars of Supercell culture. We've always insisted on giving the game team full independence (we sometimes refer to the team as a "cell"), and in the company culture, team independence remains sacrosanct – after all, that's the number one reason we started Supercell.
At Supercell, the leadership's role is to assemble the best team and then trust the team completely and won't tell them what to do. In a sense, Supercell's team is like an internal, completely independent subsidiary of a large company.
When teams talk about how to do more for players, sometimes they encounter another conflict, and that is that the health of team members suffers. We've realized that because Supercell's team operates completely independently, is small but ambitious, and has had to work remotely during the pandemic, there are times when team members put too much pressure on themselves and lead to excessive exhaustion. In a few cases, in order to provide players with extra content, developers are forced to sacrifice their own health and even experience symptoms of overwork.
This really me out for three reasons:
1. It's not fair to employees and their families, and while overtime is prevalent in the gaming industry, I definitely don't want me or any other colleague to be proud of it;
2. This runs directly counter to our mission to start a company that can run for decades – a mission we obviously can't achieve if our employees are exhausted;
3. We want to push Supercell to be the best place for top talent, teams, to make great games, and if people are running out of energy in the process of creating games, it means we're still far from that goal.
After discussion, we came to the conclusion that no matter what the team does, it cannot be at the expense of the health of its members. Having teammates work like crazy won't solve the problem, and no one should sacrifice their health and wellbeing for the goal of achieving the team or Supercell. In the long run, this means that we need to build healthy, sustainable teams.
Today, we believe that if we push the team more responsibly, we will not only be able to do more, but also ensure that every member of the team is properly organized and allow enough time to recover. At the same time, we're working to remove the stigma [of employees] from talking about mental health in the workplace, encouraging discussions within the team to explore healthier ways to collaborate and provide the best service to players.
In short, we want to take a long-term view and do not care about the immediate gains and losses. I believe that the above discussions and actions will bring us closer to assembling the healthiest teams in the gaming industry, while also ensuring that we do more for our players.
03
A continuous improvement mindset
In the process of talking about how to provide better service to players, we also began to discuss the concept of "growth mentality". At Supercell, this means we need to:
1. Get better every day. No matter how good you are, your team, or your game, it's always going to get better.
2. Have the courage to take risks. Once successful, many companies can easily fall into the trap of going back to the old ways. To truly innovate, we need to be humble and open-minded, take risks, and face unknown outcomes. If we do that, we will certainly encounter many setbacks and failures, but we can also learn a lot from it, become stronger, and ultimately reap great successes. We also remind ourselves that we should return to the habit of opening champagne to celebrate failure.
When talking about a growth mindset, we find it easy to conflate it with user (volume) or revenue growth, but that's not what I meant. So we decided to switch to calling it an "improved mindset," which seemed more in line with our culture.
For us, the core of the "improving mindset" is striving to get better and continuing to be bold in trying new things. Intention is far more important than outcome. Last year, for example, we innovated in several of our company's games and expressed an attitude of continuous improvement.
Cartoon Farm's Farm Pass
In 2020, Cartoon Farm Launched Farm Pass, and over the past year, the development team has worked very hard to significantly improve the experience it brings to players.
Clash of Clans' level 14 base camp
In April 2021, the Clash of Clans team introduced a level 14 base camp to the game, greatly improving the game's long-term player experience.
Clash Royale: Level 14 cards and hero cards
There was a lot of discussion within the team and some people felt that these major changes were very risky. Despite objections from some members, the Clash Royale team decided to take the risk and ultimately improved the player experience.
Brawl of the Wild: More in-depth cultivation mechanics and club updates
The Brawl team also took a big risk by adding a deeper nurturing mechanic to the game while improving the players' social club experience, laying the groundwork for subsequent content development.
The largest number of online beta games in a decade
Supercell currently has 3 online beta games, which means that since 2012, when Clash of Clans and Cartoon Farm came out, 2022 has been the year we have the most games in research. What makes me even happier is that they are completely different from other games we have.
Everdale is a serene, relaxed-building game with an overall atmosphere that offers players a never-ending adventure, and the beta version was released in August last year, and the response from players has been very good. Since then, the development team has been improving the game and listening to player feedback.
At the same time, we also unveiled 3 new games with the "Clash" IP and openly talked about the roadmap for these games. Today, two of them are in beta testing!
04
Support for like-minded game studios
We've been investing in like-minded developers for years, and to date, 14 game studios have accepted Supercell's investment. It's one of the ways we can do more for our players, allowing us to offer players more high-quality games. I'm particularly pleased with the momentum of Merge Mansion, Love & Pies, and Beatstar.
1. Beatstar is a music rhythm game developed by Space Ape Games, which has topped the 24 national download charts after its official release on August 31 last year, and is currently the world's best-selling music mobile game. Incidentally, Space Ape has launched a beta release for Boom Beach Frontlines, a new team-shooter that adopts the "Island Raiders" worldview.
2. "Merging Mansions" is produced by Metacore and has been downloaded more than 20 million times to date.
3. Trailmix launched its studio debut "Love & Pies" to the global market, which quickly exceeded 1 million downloads and won the 2021 TIGA Casual Game of the Year Award.
We fund these teams as well as some support in other areas as they make their needs. In addition, we have learned a lot from these amazing teams.
05
Expand your talent team through the LEVEL UP program
Historically, we've tended to hire only experienced developers, but now we realize that it's also important to learn from young talent. That's why we launched the Level Up program, which brings together 6 recent graduates and has them work together to develop a game within six months. The program has only just begun, but it has already attracted many outstanding young people to join. We're more open to recruiting young developers than we've been in the past.
06
Founded a game studio in North America
Late last year, we announced plans to start a game studio in North America and are looking for a founder.
07
2021 Financial Results
If anyone has read my blog posts over the years, they know that under Finnish law, Supercell is required to publish the company's financial results during this time of year. Therefore, I would also like to share the relevant data here.
In 2021, Supercell had revenues of €1.89 billion ($2.24 billion) and pretax profit of €734 million ($852 million). In the past year alone, we have contributed around €150 million (US$177 million) in corporate taxes to Finland. Many of us benefit from free education and health care in Finland and are proud to be able to contribute to society and, by extension, to help others. In addition, we strive to reduce carbon emissions in our daily operations, which has a positive impact on society in this way!
08
Do more for the player
What are players expecting from Supercell in 2022? With a mindset of continuous improvement, we want to continue to serve our players better, launch new games, and add new ways to our existing titles that surprise players.
Both Cartoon Farm and Clash of Clans will celebrate their tenth anniversaries, and we plan to celebrate both games, as well as a host of new content and exciting new features that are not yet available.
The Clash Royale team has a big plan for the new year, including ensuring that players of all skill levels are rewarded with a sense of accomplishment to explore the game and collect a variety of cards and characters. The Brawl and Island Raiders teams are also working hard to focus on delivering new content to players!
At the same time, other teams will continue to develop iterative versions for the 3 games that enter beta testing. At this stage, Supercell has a total of 7 new games in different stages of development, each of which is creative and will bring players a very unique experience, and we hope to get players to try some of the titles soon. We're also looking forward to the 14 supercell-backed game studios releasing more great games.
As I've said before, to truly innovate and raise the bar for quality in games, we need to be humble and open-minded, take risks, and face unknown outcomes. I've always believed that companies don't fail because they take risks, and that stopping risks is what causes companies to fail. If we haven't experienced enough failures, it only means we haven't worked hard enough. So I hope we'll drink a lot of champagne this year.
09
Thank you players!
At the end of the article, I would like to thank all the players of the Supercell game. The player community inspires us to challenge ourselves and strive to be better every day. We know that there are many games on the market that are worth playing, so we are extremely honored that many players have played Supercell's games for many years in a row. We will continue to work hard to improve the gaming experience and hope that players will continue to walk with us.
We take our relationship with the community very seriously and will continue to listen to player feedback. In the future, we may make some mistakes, but we will always try to release new games to players around the world, while adding more new content to existing games.
Our dream never changes, and that is to create games that will be played by as many players as possible for years on end and will always be remembered. Through hard work, a little luck, and your continued support, I believe Supercell's best days are still ahead!
Finally, on behalf of all the developers of Supercell, thank you!
—Ekka Pananaen