Plus, it’s clear that Clash Royale is currently in a bit of a rough patch. Hay Day has been long since triumphed over by the content machine that is Playrix's Township, and in strategy games there's a long line of contenders willing to do whatever it takes to claim market share from Clash of Clans. Creating content is a lot of work, and keeping up with competitors that don't employ similar team size restrictions has proven tricky for Supercell. The past years have only cemented what we already knew about growing live games: no matter the type of the game you are running, you need a steady flow of great content to keep players engaged and spending. Combining this structure with world-class developers has rewarded Supercell with some of the biggest games ever made, including Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, and Brawl Stars.Īs recent launches from Hay Day Pop to Rush Wars have failed to take off, Supercell's growth has rested entirely on its live games. In new game development, the merits of this approach cannot be overstated. Early-stage cells can literally be a couple of developers doing their own thing in a nondescript corner of the office. The typical "cell"-as Supercell refers to their teams-is rarely larger than 20 developers. Supercell has historically been adamant about their approach to stay small and keep their game teams independent. Notably, 88.1 percent of the company is owned by Tencent, who certainly wouldn't mind seeing the numbers go up instead of down. Meanwhile, the industry at large has seen double-digit yearly growth. While the company is often quick to sidestep this by claiming that it is not very numbers-driven, it's definitely a disappointment. Even so, Supercell has failed to see a year of growth since their peak year in 2015. It needs to be said that these are remarkable numbers for a game studio that employs only 300-odd people. The last year saw Supercell's revenue decline 7 percent to €1.3 billion EBITDA declined 21 percent to €406 million. Paananen's letter rightfully addresses this as well. Finnish law requires even privately-held limited liability companies to report their financials quite openly, which is also the case for Supercell. Think of it as Supercell's take on the dusty shareholder letter format: instead of pitching to investors, it's an eclectic mix of addressing Supercell fans and the game industry. Last Tuesday saw the release of the latest of the Supercell founder-CEO Ilkka Paananen’s yearly posts.
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