Mobile gaming is a tough industry. Even though the market is huge—arguably surpassing the PC and console market—the number of games releasing every day is equally gigantic and developers can struggle to make their games known.
When a mobile game is a big enough success, it can generate billions, however. Supercell is one of the best examples of a mobile game company that seemingly came out of nowhere and suddenly became a juggernaut in the industry.
Supercell is a Finnish developer whose first success was Clash of Clans, released in 2013. Since then, it has generated over $10 billion. In 2022, the company made nearly half a billion dollars with this game only.
It replicated the success with other titles afterward. But the next successes were no coincidence. Each time Supercell released another title, it hid a cemetery of countless canceled titles.
“We have launched 5 hit games but we have killed 30+, by my latest count,” Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen said in the company’s annual blog post on Feb. 15. “We haven’t launched a new game globally since Brawl Stars on December 12, 2018.”
Related: Supercell is donating €1 million to UNHCR to support humanitarian efforts in Ukraine
In the blog post, he spoke about the challenges of Supercell’s future, and the first one was to create games that “have a shot at becoming cultural phenomena.” He explained how making it into the video game industry was hard, but that it’s “even harder [to] repeat this success.”
He outlined the company’s method to meet this objective: assembling independent studios, trusting “passion over data,” and leading—referring to innovation.
Supercell’s CEO said Squad Busters is the next game from the company. It’s an online fighting game that will bring together Brawl Stars, Clash Royale, and Clash of Clans. A release time window has yet to be revealed.
