Biz Daily: Will Supercell ever release another game?

[Music] [Applause] [Music] hello and welcome to Biz daily I'm John Jordan today we're asking ourselves a serious question will supercell ever release another game we're asking that question today because supercell have canned another game um so this happens lots of game developers um generally they're not as famous as supercell so people don't pay so much attention to it and um supercell have always had this big thing that they've always been um almost like kind of quite happy to heal games I don't think it's particularly the case now but certainly when they were starting out there was this kind of um kind of almost like kind of boasting that they would say whenever we whenever we kill a game that's in development or or in soft launch as this particular game was we have champagne in the office um and the kind of idea behind that is very interesting cuz it's because um in

this time of kind of games as a service when you're kind of constantly updating a game or constantly having people working on it um the kind of the cost of releasing a game that you can never make profitable is just Dreadful it can kind of kill companies you can just have you know you can end up having kind of all your teams working on games AR making you really enough money and if be much better off to kill off all your games and get your teams working on new games um obviously when supercell um started out um they had a bit different kind of situation they weren't the most profitable game development company in the world as they are now so they could be maybe a bit more flexible but the interesting thing is and reent supercell are still such a highly regarded team um is that they are still fairly small so maybe about 130 now um which is relatively small considering the money that they generate over a billion dollars a year um but they keep kind of keep this agile and they keep this kind of ability to um make decisions fast I guess so the game that's been um killed today um is is uh is smash land so it's

been in soft launch in a couple of kind of territories Australia and Canada so most people haven't played it um and what game developers do is they you know get the games to a state they think are good enough they release them in a couple of countries and you see what the reaction is see if players are playing them um see how much they're playing them how many times they're playing them a day are they inviting their friends to play um most people would would have monetization in those games you know how much are they spending in games it's not a proper launch so you can't the numbers um you know you you could argue or some people would argue that perhaps those numbers aren't um kind of rock solid in terms of if you had a game a big game launch globally then the verality of that game could be much bigger because everyone's playing it where it's obviously just in one country you're limiting your verality um but smash land um this game it's been been out um for about I think six weeks now maybe maybe two months um and it's kind of a game that kind of look it's kind of like a like a pinging game almost like a snooker game so there's been um a famous game in Japan um called Monster Strike

from Mixie that's been a massive game it's been number one game in Japan so that kind of mechanic is kind of coming around there's been a few games actually in Japan before that I'm using the same mechanic um so uh it's kind of quite nice mechanic you're kind of like pinging characters around in in a kind of like an RPG type type Manner and they're bouncing around and kind of cannoning off each other and it's kind of a nice physics kind of kind of a gameplay um so that game has been been worked on and has been kind of in soft launch super just put have put out a statement saying um while people are finding it fun and fans are enjoying it all that kind of stuff they personally don't feel it they it can kind of meet their high standards and obviously those high standards are it has three of the U Top gross in games mobile games ever made so Clash of Clans still up there at the top um as as the highest gross in game globally um on on IOS and Android Boom Beach um after a fairly slow start um

and and potentially had a lot of UA dollars spent on it that's that's kind of a top roing game as well particularly done strong in Asia recently l in China last year and Heyday which is kind of almost kind of like under underlooked really I suppose um which is kind of the the kind of next generation of farming games very different audience those other two games much more kind of female but um I've always thought is is kind of the more the more interesting and more Innovative of the three games that super does but um all three of them top 10 top racing games um and kind of to the degree I think the problem is it's very hard when you have those kind of games you know are they going to get a fourth game in the top grossing Global charts I mean it's very hard now it's very competitive you got people like King and Zinger on machine Zone and EA and glue and all these kind of people not to mention all the kind of Chinese and Korean and um Japanese companies out there um so it's very hard to get in that market now so almost like the standard that a company like supercell would need to get anywhere close to making as much kind of money as as the games it currently has

out you know that's that's that's a hard barrier um to reach and I guess we've seen this already this year cuz super also had another game um had like a match three game called um spooky pop again that was in soft launch again that was um kind of not necessarily quite killed off but that was kind of like um people noticed it was it wasn't available anymore they actually put out um to the fans again that was I think in Australia and um Canada they put out kind of press notes to the fans saying that this game's not going to be supported anymore um and obviously because it's superc all the journalists picked up on it and were writing stories about it and I think supercell is a company that everyone has fascinated in everyone wants to see you know how can we kind of copy their success um but it's I think one of these things where actually supercell standards are now so High um actually don't necessarily want to copy their I think if anyone else had had had those games in soft launch they would release them and be really happy with the results but supercell have such a kind of high standard now that they're looking for something better but this is interesting so in future you know

Innovative companies um always want to be working on new stuff so I'm sure the people at supercell are very happy working on the games that they're working on but you always need something new and so how long can they keep kind of canning games um and just say well no let's um you go back and work on on Clash of clowns um so to keep innovating um and innovating in a live environment and having games released and that keeps companies exciting you know I'm sure everyone Superstar is making good money but you still working on new games and going yeah I did that game that worked really well that's out now and and that's exciting so there's an interesting balance for them to make and um it's it's kind of interesting again going back in history because supercell um was was was a relative failure when it when it started it was making games for Facebook it made a game called gunshine didn't like at all um and it also um killed some other games and had a kind of mobile game G was kind of in soft launch called battle buddies um that was before Clash of Clans came out so it is interesting that it has managed to retain this kind of quite kind of um rigorous almost Bon way of

kind of killing its games and uh and moving on to the next thing so I'm sure there are lots of other projects within supercell that they're kind of currently working on that we don't know about but I think they're um they're maintaining this very good Balancing Act of of of only only letting the highest games be released but um you do kind of Wonder the more and more that they cancel how much longer it can go on before they just go well come on we canceled the last two let's let this one go out but that's the uh The Genius of super cell that they managed to kind of keep walking that balance so we'll wait and see what happens in the next game and come back tomorrow and find out what the news is then I'll see you then