According to a new interview in the Financial Times, mobile gaming giant Supercell will take more risks with its future games and focus on exploring new genres. This sentiment comes after over five years without a new worldwide release and reported revenue losses.
Supercell is the studio behind the incredibly successful Clash of Clans, as well as its spin-off Clash Royale and a handful of other mobile-only titles. The Financial Times spoke to Ilkka Paananen, the company’s CEO, about the future of Supercell and mobile gaming as a whole. He said that the studio feels immense pressure with each game it releases as every project is inevitably compared to Clash of Clans’ breakout success.
Speaking to FT’s Richard Milne, Paananen said, “We want to create something better and bigger than Clash of Clans. That won’t happen unless we take even more risk . . . All kinds of risks. We shouldn’t be stuck in previous genres, we should try new genres and invent new ones.” We got a taste of Supercell’s genre expansion in our Squad Busters preview, but we’ve not received any updates on the game’s development since late May 2023.
Tencent, one of the largest gaming companies in the world and the studio rumored to be developing Elden Ring mobile, acquired Supercell in 2016. This merger is part of a larger trend of tech giants acquiring mobile game companies, such as Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard and King last year. Paananen clarified that Supercell has “complete operational independence” from Tencent, as it did with its previous owner SoftBank, but the partnership has helped the studio’s games reach the Chinese market.
Finally, Paananen said that the reason for the reported stagnation of the mobile gaming market is partially due to a lack of innovation in the types of games coming out of studios. He said, “I don’t subscribe to the idea that there’s a glass ceiling and the best days are behind us.”
So, Supercell plans to take more risks in the future to find success. If, like us, you’re still loving the studio’s older titles, check out our Clash Royale download, Clash Royale decks, Squad Busters characters, and Clash of Clans bases guides next.