Supercell Company (supercell). History of creation

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) is increasingly involved in interactive media and games among them (you can remember, for example, the BAFTA Games Awards). The Academy also holds the BAFTA Games Lecture, where the best game developers speak. In 2016, for the first time, a mobile developer rose to the stage - this Ilkka Paananen from Supercell.

Here is from his speech.

1. Will of chance

Ilkka, director of one of the most successful game studios, doesn't know how to make games. He is an industrial engineer by training and has no experience in game design, programming, or drawing. He himself says that his career is largely "accidental".

He went to an ambitious Finnish game studio for an unpaid position "to do everything except development" - he turned out to be the only applicant there - and became the CEO of the company, which later turned into the Sumea studio. In 2004 it was bought by Digital Chocolate and Paananen became its president in 2010. Six months later he left to start a new company that we now know as Supercell.

2. Strangled by the process

Over the years, Paananen's approach to work has changed in many ways.

His obsession with logic and organization may well have suffocated the company in its early stages.

“Everything has to be logical,” he says. "It had a big impact on how I wanted to run the company."

But in practice, processes that looked good and logical on paper “were bureaucratic obstacles, slowed down work, and creative people began to leave.”

An example of this would be the "Green Light Document", the need for a new project to be approved by all departments of the company.

All this was exacerbated by rapid growth, which increased the complexity of internal processes and threatened to change the company's culture.

"This does not lead to the creation good games does not encourage risk taking,” he says. “Games, like a business, should not be driven by processes. It doesn't matter how well-intentioned you are."

How to deal with complexity? The answer in Supercell's current culture is "hire the best people and then trust them."

3. Developers first, management second

Paananen believes that game companies can learn a lot from sports teams.

“The real stars are the players, not the management or the coaches,” he said.

It is from this point of view that the entire structure of Supercell is organized - from the bottom up.

The role of Paananen and leadership in "organizing a better environment for these guys, we're just trying not to disturb them."

“At Supercell, we have 200 leaders and 200 executives. It may seem a bit idealistic or even naive, but that is our goal.”

But not everyone is ready to be the leader - which is why the company hired only 6 developers in 2015 - an extremely low number for the world's leading studio.

The company is really trying to stay as small as possible.

But this means that Supercell needs "generalist" specialists, as its size and structure do not allow to keep narrowly focused workers.

Its cells - small internal teams working independently inside - "may not even have game designers."

This approach is hardly suitable for everyone, but for the right Supercell candidate, this is an opportunity to make the most of the gaming industry.

4. Do better by shutting down games

Closing games in a soft lunch has become a common Supercell practice and is even celebrated with champagne. The company has shut down dozens of projects, but Paananen says Supercell isn't enjoying it.

“We don't try to pretend that defeat is funny because it sucks,” he says. “This is absolute rubbish. Some say we celebrate failure, but that's not true. We're celebrating lessons learned from failure that are so valuable they deserve champagne."

In essence, Paananen's philosophy is not to be afraid of mistakes, but to be afraid of their absence.

“One of my worst nightmares is that I can't name a single mistake from last year,” he explains. "This is a catastrophe".

Companies that never make mistakes never do anything new.

5. The Clash Royale prototype existed before Clash of Clans

A prototype game called The Summoners was made before the 2012 release of Clash of Clans. "Someone, probably me, said real-time PvP would never work, so let's just leave it at that," Ilkka said.

But in the end Clash Royale became one of the hits of the studio and proved that the PvP mode is fully functional even on mobile devices.

What if Supercell released Clash Royale earlier in a less mature market and before Clash of Clans? Probably, her success would have been many times less.

Finnish company Supercell having created only two games for the iOS platform, he earns $ 2.4 million a day.

Games created by Supercell are distributed free of charge, the company makes a profit using the so-called scheme freemium, which allows you to buy in-game currency. Supercell has managed to create such exciting games that players can easily part with real dollars in exchange for virtual bonuses.

The success of Supercell is impressive, the games are free, there are only two of them, they were released for only one iOS platform and such earnings. The studio employs only 70 people, and 8.5 million people play Supercell games every day.

In the first quarter of 2013, Supercell's turnover was $179 million, of which $104 million was net income. Supercell's earnings continue to grow, with 2013 revenues expected to reach $800 million to $1 billion.

Over the next three years, Supercell plans to release games for Android platforms, the capture of Asian markets, further release of hits and possibly an IPO.

Large publishers with hundreds of games in the AppStore have much less profit. What are they doing wrong?

How to make a million on a mobile game?

The 34-year-old studio boss says the best way to start making money from mobile games stop thinking about making money. The main thing is to create exciting game from which you can't escape. Companies that prioritize making money over having an interesting app often fail, and certainly don't do as well anyway.

Supercell takes a different approach to game development. There is no one project manager who commands the designers and programmers. Studio developers work in autonomous groups of 5-7 people. Each team generates its own game ideas.

The idea is then tested step by step. First, the idea is approved by Paananen, the next stage is the implementation and testing of the game within the company. Next, a team of testers is recruited, then the game is released in the Canadian App store. And only in case of success it enters the global market. At each stage, the game can be rejected, 4 projects have not passed such a check to date. But Paananen believes unsuccessful games useful learning and not at all sad about it.

Are newbies lucky?

Although Supercell is young, its leaders are not new to startups. Ilka Paananen and co-founder Mikko Kodisoja sold their first startup, Sumea, in 2004 for $6 million in cash and another $12 million in Digital Chocolate stock. After 6 years, with three more co-founders, they created Supercell.

In 2011, the company was able to raise $12 million in investment and focused on developing games for the iPad tablet. Clash of Clans and Hay Day appeared in the App store in the summer of 2012. By the end of the year, both games had stayed in the top 5 App store longer than any other game that year. And Clash of Clans has become the most successfully monetized game to date.

What is the secret of Supercell games?

The secret of Supercell studio games is not in the original idea, there are so many farm and tower defense games on the mobile market that there can be no question of any uniqueness. It's just that the Finns managed to create, perhaps, the best games in these genres to date.

The creations of Paananen and his team attract users with simple gameplay and immersive attention to detail. Grateful players spend money or time on Clash of Clans and Hay Day, and often both.

Money is spent to speed up production and improve buildings. It is important that it is not necessary to pay money to win, after spending more time you can complete the game without paying a penny. Developers do not force players to pay, but only push them to do so.

Supercell Company (Supesell) was founded Ilkka Paananen and Mikko Kodisoyei, who previously worked for the mobile gaming company Sumea. Kodisoyya was one of the founders of Sumea in 1999 and Paananen was hired as the company's CEO in 2000.

In 2004, Sumea was acquired by American Digital Chocolate, placing its European headquarters in Finland. Paananen became the manager of the American company in Europe, Kodisoyya retained the position of creative director. In 2010, both left the company and set about founding their own company, Supercell.

In 2010 year Ilkka Paananen, Kodisoyya, Petri Sturman, Lassi Leppinen (CEO at Sumea and Digital Chocolate), Visa Forsten and Niko Derom founded in Niittukumpu, area of ​​the city of Espoo, his gaming company Supersell, in which executives were not supposed to interfere with the work of game developers.

Kodisoyya and Paananen invested in a new company 250,000 euros from their savings made while working at Sumea. In addition, they succeeded get a loan of 400,000 euros from the Finnish technology innovation funding agency Tekes. one more Lifeline Ventures became the investor. Soon Supercell raises another €750,000 from several investors, including London Ventures Partner and Initial Capital.

In 2012 Supercell was recognized as the best Scandinavian start-up company and selected as the Finnish game developer of the year. Supercell won the competition the following year Finnish Teknologiakasvattaja 2013(Technology Educator 2013), and was selected as the Software Development Entrepreneur of the Year.

In 2014, the scientific and consulting agency T-Media recognizes SuperCell as Finland's most respected company in its Luottamus&Maine (Trust&Reputation) report.

Paananen's first studio was called Sumea. He founded it in 2000. The studio specialized in games for mobile phones.

By the time it was sold to Digital Chocolate in 2004, it had 40 employees. The new owner renamed the studio to Digital Chocolate Helsinki, which continued to produce projects for the J2ME platform.

In 2010, Ilkka left the studio, which at that time already had about 400 employees. It was one of the largest (if not the largest) at that time in Finland.

He was not satisfied with many internal processes. One of them concerned how the greenlight of projects went.

To start development, the team had to prepare piles of papers: a business plan, a case, market opportunities, a story about a niche, and the like.

Paananen came to the conclusion that the purpose of all these documents was not to make cool game. The main task was to convince the entire company - from management to marketing, sales and accounting - that it was worth taking on development, that it had potential.

But the reality is that only developers understand their game. Not business managers, not employees of the financial department, but those who are directly involved in its creation.

Realizing this, Paananen came to the conclusion that he may have been thinking wrong about the games.

Games are part of the creative industry, not science.

It doesn't matter how well the team is organized, the processes, how great the presentation is. All this alone will not create a great game.

These reflections prompted him to experiment, to create Supercell, built on a completely different model. In the company, the management role is given directly to the development teams, whose initiatives and experiments are supported by the studio, but do not try to "steer" them.

Paananen himself compares this to the existence of independent startups within the same company.

It is important not only that the teams within themselves decide what to do, but also their very small size.

Lack of resources encourages innovation and allows employees to focus on what matters most. When there are only two programmers in a team, they have to concentrate on the most important thing, figure out how to solve the tasks facing them with such forces.

Independence teaches responsibility. Within the company there are very high requirements for greenlight. And if something doesn't work, the project is killed or its team changes.

Paananen notes that this model is not suitable for everyone. Employees must be very proactive, work for the result. It's about people who don't need a boss who tells them what to do. Perhaps these are the ones who can start their own business.

Another pitfall of this model is stress. It arises due to constant work in conditions of a lack of resources, high responsibility and a tough internal greenlight for the release, which leads to the fact that many employees may not release their games for years (worked on one - closed, worked on the second for a long time - also closed and around).

In conclusion, Ilkka once again mentioned that the model is not universal. Moreover, the structure of a company is a constantly evolving thing. And it evolves as long as the company exists.