Supercell throws parties for its killed games and tests new ones in Canada
At the Finnish studio behind Clash of Clans, small teams of five to seven people decide for themselves when to kill their own games, and staff celebrate the successful failures. New titles are tried out first on Canada's App Store; only if Canadian players stick around does a game go worldwide.
Ilkka Paananen and Mikko Kodisoja had worked together at the mobile studio Sumea, which the American firm Digital Chocolate bought in 2004. Leaving in 2010, Paananen wanted a company where executives would not get in developers' way. He, Kodisoja and four colleagues founded Supercell on 14 May 2010 in the Niittykumpu district of Espoo, backed by 250,000 euros of their own money and a 400,000-euro loan from the Finnish innovation agency Tekes.
Their first game, Gunshine, a multiplayer title for Facebook browsers and phones, peaked at about half a million players and was dropped in November 2011 as too hard and not gripping enough. Seeing Zynga's grip on Facebook games as unbeatable, the team pivoted to the iPad. Hay Day, a farming game in the vein of FarmVille, arrived in May 2012, and Clash of Clans, built in six months, launched on 2 August 2012 and within three months was the top-earning app in the United States.
Investors came calling. Japanese publisher GungHo, whose cross-promotion made Clash of Clans a hit in Japan, introduced Paananen to SoftBank chief Masayoshi Son, and on 7 October 2013 the two companies bought 51 percent for 1.1 billion euros, a record price for a private Finnish firm. In 2016 a consortium half-owned by Tencent acquired 81.4 percent. Revenue grew 800 percent in three years, from 78.4 million euros in 2012.
The famous marketing splurge brought less than expected. For Super Bowl XLIX in February 2015, Supercell paid $9 million for a 60-second spot in which Liam Neeson parodied his Taken persona hunting a player who wrecked his village. It became YouTube's most watched commercial of 2015, yet downloads rose only marginally.
Source: Supercell (company)
