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 aspiring Finnish game studio for an unpaid "do everything but development" position - he was the only applicant there - and became the CEO of the company that later became 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.

"It doesn't lead to good games, it doesn't 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.

In the next three years, Supercell plans to release games for the Android platform, capture 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 executive says the best way to start making money from mobile games is to stop thinking about making money. The main thing is to create an exciting game that you can’t tear yourself away from. 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 considers unsuccessful games to be useful learning and is not at all sad about this.

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.

As the developer of the hit mobile game Clash of Clans, went from its first title to a global mobile sensation in just 15 months, says Ilka Paananen, Supercell's senior executive. “Our dream is to become a global gaming company,” says Ilka Paananen, just three years after founding the Finnish studio. Technically, Supercell remains a startup, but the Helsinki-based developer quickly became one of the biggest gaming studios in the world thanks to the resounding success of Clash of Clans and Hay Day mobile games for smartphones and tablets.

These two games regularly top the App Store charts, and at one point earned Supercell $2.4 million a day. According to mobile analyst App Annie, last November the Finnish studio earned more from Clash of Clans and Hay Day than any other iOS developer, including giant EA with 969 games.

Supercell's success is not limited to Europe - both games have become global sensations, topping the App Store charts in the US, Australia and Japan.

Supercell's near-global reach has not gone unnoticed and has attracted the attention of telecom giants such as Softbank and GungHo Entertainment. Recall that the latter company developed the Japanese mobile hit Puzzle & Dragons. With a simple match-3 concept, this game is one of the few titles that can match the success of Supercell games. According to recent data, Puzzle & Dragons brings in an average of almost $5 million per day to its developer.

After Supercell and GungHo collaborated to jointly promote each other's games, GungHo's publisher and parent company Japanese Softbank has decided to spend $1.5 billion on a 51% stake in the Finnish company. Three years after its birth, Supercell is valued at $3 billion.

“The idea that inspired all of us was the dream of becoming a truly global gaming company,” explains Paanen. “We would like to unite gamers around the world in the same gaming franchises. It's still too early to tell, but there are already signs that Clash of Clans could be such a franchise. This game took the top lines of the ratings in the US and Europe, the second - in China, and in Japan reached the third place. If you want to make history, you need time and patience. Now that our financial situation is more than stable and our titles are successful, we have all the time in the world to achieve our dreams.”
humble beginnings

Supercell has not always set itself the goal of growing into a global company, the studio does not have a rich long history. Paananen admits that when the six founders of the company met in 2010, they could not have imagined that their games would become so popular with consumers.

The senior executive director of Supercell already had experience in creating his own companies. In 2000, he founded Sumea, which was also involved in mobile games. Four years later, the company was bought by Digital Chocolate, and Paananen remained managing director of Sumea in Europe and then took over as president, which he remained until the beginning of 2010. After leaving, he founded his own studio, Supercell.

Initially, Supercell was going to create cross-platform games for browsers, Facebook, smartphones and tablets. The debut game of the studio was the multiplayer game Gunshine for Facebook, which was ported to the mobile platform. The game world was the same on any device.

After 14-15 months of development for Gunshine, the studio stopped working on the game, despite the title attracting half a million monthly active users. It was a difficult decision, but Paananen says Supercell has never looked back since. Gunshine was not the only victim of this decision. In the fall of 2011, the company "killed virtually everything it was working on" and focused entirely on tablets and smartphones.

“We realized that for a mobile platform we had to develop a game from scratch,” explains Paananen, “The user interface for smartphones and tablets is fundamentally different from a desktop with its mouse. We have seen first hand that it is impossible to combine both platforms in one game if you want to create the best game for smartphones and tablets. Therefore, we decided to focus entirely on the mobile platform. And this decision was probably the best decision in the history of Supercell.”
Celebration of failure

Despite a radical change in course and the abandonment of the current project, Supercell began work on five new games at once. Some of them have been launched in beta versions in Canada. However, none of the games were successful. However, Supercell has never been a company disappointed by failure. Interestingly, the studio celebrates the stoppage of work on each project by opening a bottle of champagne.

Paananen did not intend to hide the successes or failures of projects from his team, on the contrary, he introduced a culture of transparency in the studio - “we provided all the key statistics and metrics of each game to every employee of our studio. Absolutely everyone at Supercell receives our game stats at the same time every day via email.”

“Each member of our team could see first hand how popular our games are and everyone, I believe, realized that Gunshine is a dead end project, so we need to switch to something else. Of course, you always take to heart the failures of the games you work hard on. But on the other hand, I think people say to themselves, "OK, it doesn't work, let's try something else."

Another secret of Supercell's success is people, i.e. those who make the games even appear. Many companies claim to prioritize the team, but Supercell puts employees at the forefront of achieving financial performance, revenue and profit. The studio creates the most favorable conditions for creativity, which attract the best of the best, and professionals, in turn, make successful games that generate income for the company.

The principle of organization of the company's work is based on the "cell" ("cell" - hence the name Supercell). Each team can have five or six members, and this structure, Paananen explains, allows everyone to contribute to the development of their own gaming experience, which in turn encourages a sense of ownership of the projects among all employees.

Unlike big companies, Supercell doesn't practice the "green light" system and the odious "design by committee" practice that Paananen says most of the big company's talented developers hate. Instead, the studio gives its developers maximum creative freedom to create exactly the games they want.

“For the right type of people, this is a very attractive environment. The teams are small, so the responsibility of each is great. This approach means more “pressure” than in large organizations, but it also ensures maximum “fun,” Paananen explains.
Supercell plans for the future

With $1.5bn from Softbank and GungHo, the Finnish studio is looking to develop another mobile hit, while continuing to work on Hay Day and Clash of Clans for the foreseeable future. These games may well become as long-lived as such iconic titles for the video game industry as World of Warcraft and League of Legends.

“We need to make our games even better. And of course we're considering expanding into other markets, so South Korea is next on our list, we've already started work in Japan where the Android version of Clash of Clans is available. We believe that there are still a lot of mobile users in the world who have not yet played Hay Day or Clash of Clans, so we still have room to grow,” explains Paananen.

“We can still make our titles even better for players by introducing new features, content, ways to play and so on. So that's our top priority. Supercell will release a new game at some point."