Session: Hay Day – 12 Years Of Growth & Scaling For Longevity - Maya Hofree, Supercell.

[Music] speak about Heyday 12 years and Beyond I'll leave you with your lovely Meer hi thank you wow okay thank you everybody for coming uh so yeah so I'm going to talk about hday uh 12 years and Beyond uh so let's uh just start yes H so yeah I'll start by introducing myself so I'm Maya I'm uh 41 I was born and raised in Israel from Tel Aviv yeah can you make this a big bigger thank you uh yeah this is the

easy one cuz I know myself pretty well uh but I live in Helsinki uh so when some people ask me like why Helsinki I would say probably it's the gaming industry and it's it's super cell right um so yeah I'm the general manager for Heyday I've been with the company for the last year and a half so I'm going to try to represent the game as well as I can because I've only been there for a year and a half and I'm actually going to talk about the last 12 years and going forward a little bit uh before that I used to work in plka and before that jelly Buton games and also in product manness which was also a UK uh based company but let's talk about Haiti so uh probably some of you know this uh but our dream is to create games that as many people as possible play for years and are remember forever uh which kind of makes this uh talk more relevant right because this is what we're trying to achieve uh so if you haven't seen this before suell was founded on the idea of giving like small independent teams the play to create the games that they want to play that the games that

they believe in so kind of like over uh a decade later I think we have uh six Global uh games that in the dream still stands H so if you look at this this is kind of like the timeline of the last uh uh of our game releases I think what's actually relevant for me here is the fact that Heyday was the first Super Cell game uh launched on on iPad you keep changing that and thank you yeah yeah so that was like the first uh uh game that was really reled on iPad um and that was back in 2012 so let's talk about the market situation in 2012 I don't know how many of you were back then but it was a Facebook game saturation a lot of games were on Facebook back then it was a iPhone was really becoming pretty popular but there was like a few freeto playay games back then a iPad was launched H there were not a lot of games that were actually crafted for touch games er sorry

and and I think that that was one of the major uh things back then right a lot of games were from the Facebook platform and they were pivoted to mobile but didn't really understand kind of like how do how do we um make the craft the touch experience much more enhanced and this is kind of like what brought us uh to uh releasing Heyday so this is actually an original uh email sent between Ila and timour who was back then the game lead for the game h so they decided to launch the game this was back in uh uh 2011 and as you can see the brief was the best farming game for tablets so yeah uh so the promise uh was very clear back then first it was to create a game that defines the farming genre the second was use the benefits of the platform don't copy others use reality as an inspiration which actually brings us to Kate's

previous talk H avoid sorry avoid introducing complex game systems and frictionless design so all of this was back then 2012 2011 end of 2011 but this was the pillars that Heyday was crafted on so um and we're talking about the graphical interface back then I don't know if you like Heyday was one of the first games that introduced kind of like the Harvest a crop and harvest mechanis ISM so I think this was actually a really good example of using that graphical interface of the tablet to do the farming experience so you plant the seed you cra you and then you harvest them later so really leveraging touch platform at its best so June 2012 the game is launched and since then the game continued to evolve but I think what's interesting is that even with the evolution of the game we stay true to the promise of the game and what we and and what we uh mentioned before so

really everything that was delivered was through introducing new characters new uh um new areas new expansions of the game really creating this kind of like environment out there of what it means uh to to play in the Heyday world so yeah uh Heyday uh keeping true to that promise I think actually helps us uh to reach our goal which was to continue to consistently be stable through these last 12 years and it still Remains the biggest uh uh Farm mobile game out there maybe just kind of like a nice uh celebration is that we are more than 1 billion barns created in the game thank you and this is a we don't usually show graphs but I'll show you something that is pretty remarkable this is our monthly active players H through the beginning of time until today and I think what you can see here is like we have a really loyal stable player base uh that has been been kind

of like growing even in the last few years um so I think this kind of like these and by the way these small Peaks actually reflect a small uh uh growth viral Parts uh but as you can see like even together the the game still is relevant the game still has those kind of like interesting uh uh growth virality attached to it uh so how does that how do we continue to deliver that experience I think if we're going back to the idea that we mentioned earlier it's really giving uh uh game teams those kind of like Independence to decide what kind of games they want to make and how they choose to make them H so the Heyday team throughout the years continue to do just that right we make a game that that we believe and we want to make and then we put a lot of focus and effort on this part like we still want the best games the best to be the best place for the best teams to make uh uh the best games and you probably have seen this right this is a super cell model so it's kind of like flipping the

the usual uh metrics of the organization upside down and giving all the powers to the game teams to the side H so this is kind like the independent team it's called like it's called cells H which is like super s what's it's build on and the idea is that these small independent teams are truly empowered to kind uh to do the work uh that they want to and they believe that to do um and I think kind of like the the how do we do this and how do we keep this model right so it's these two uh these three core values so the first is independence and responsibility so these independent game Sales Drive the culture and they have they're focused on their own responsibility the coporation and supercell mind super first mindset for players and for the long-term success so when they need to choose something and understand what to to do they have the responsibility that is for the game but also for the company the other one is ambition and risk-taking right we aim

high we're creating an industry defining games and we have to embrace risks and we have to also buing be willing to make mistakes we need to kill uh weak projects and celebrate the Big Dreams and learn from failures which is probably the most important one and then last is kindness and hum and humility uh we stay humble we value teamwork we Embrace curiosity and we treat everybody with respect and openness and empathy so again like I mentioned this model but I think uh if we want to stay true and deliver the best experience to our player we have to also make to to grow right and and this means that the team does did scale so Heyday team today is 50 people ER but to keep the model alive of the small game teams um what we did is we split the the game team into three sub cells and each one of these sub cells is actually the one that that creates the uh decision making and drives the game play under their own domain and then last to kind like make

sure that this all work then we added a layer of leads to help Foster this collaboration and maybe important to say it's not the same amount of leads as sub cells so the leads is actually not part of the subcell and then what the leads are in charge of is making sure that these uh independent cells have that openness and collaboration and and the the clear communication between them yeah and every decision that the the player the uh these sub cells make have the players interest first right so our player they come first when we take decisions uh cuz we want to make Heyday better as so many people as possible play it for years and remember it forever and I think one of the interesting uh uh things here is that we're not talking about scanning revenues we're make we're talking about creating the the best game that we can we're talking about as many people as possible that we want to play our game we're talking about playing it for years and remember it forever so this is our team Mission uh kind of like through the super dream

and this is kind of like an example of how we are trying to communicate with the players I don't know if you've seen this but in the Heyday YouTube channel then you can see uh this is where we're talking uh every month we have a Dair news where our uh Community member H talks with the game with the players get their feedback ER and this is actually something that we did just recently when we did a Q&A so players just posted questions and we answered them as open and as as we could I think uh some some answers the players wanted more defined answers but this is what we could give them but we try to be as open and as honest as we can and then um we also try to stay true to our promise throughout all of this time right so we continue to we know who we are we want to be the number one farming lifestyle simulator where everyone can become a prosperous farmer and I think this is one of the key things here is staying true to that promise that we made earlier where farming game or farming lifestyle

simulator where everybody has a chance to to become that prosperous farmer so I think maybe on that note uh we just launched this it's not working you might know me for being angry but that was the old me in my pursuit of Harmony I Tried it all I tried affirmations be calm I am calm digital detoxing talk to me weighted blankets well this is stupid I even tried laughter therapy but the recipe for my calmness was right here all along it's the essence of Harmony I know what you're thinking

Gordon hasn't really changed he'll always be angry mother oh the pigs are back download Heyday now and find your inner piece my brand new boots still happy yeah I thank you I think one of the industry uh one second before that just stay on the previous one yeah uh just don't start the video yeah I think one of the interesting things about this campaign is that um it comes from place where we try to understand why players play Haiti and we found out that players play our game because that's where they get that sense of relaxation of calmness something to control in this chaotic world that they live in I think this is exactly where we try to say okay so who are the people that we want to encourage to be calmer and this is uh where G Gordon Ramsey came in place is this character that uh this uh person that is actually becoming uh this cmer person and can with him we're launching this new uh um platform of uh of Heyday as

this earned relaxation and so this is just the beginning uh there's also a lot more to come and then the next slide yes so if you scan this you actually get this uh decoration H for our game so feel free to scan the game and play this is how we're recruiting new players by the way it's much cheaper than anyway yeah so this is about Heyday so thank you uh I think I I try to leave time for questions thank you I know them from the past yeah any questions yeah you choose yeah yeah thank you Maya for the presentation it was super insightful I'm just wondering a 12year old game uh what do you balance or what do you aim for new users or do you try to maintain the interest of those users that I believe

have been growing with you yes it's a good question I think it's uh you look at it through a lens of of what comes first I think first we we have our players and we owe them everything that we are today so the first when we take a decision is is making sure that they have the best experience but I think also Heyday still has a lot to deliver to a new audience and then that's the second one so how do we continue to grow that audience but in a way that stays true to the original audience has been playing our game for years and then I think when you have those two at scale at balance that's how you take those decisions but yes there's a lot of play for new players there's also a lot of play for existing players and I think the last part is how do we bring back players whove played with us I think there they are still a billion barns out there right and we just want them all to come back yeah two more minutes I think we have time for another question yeah

yes so did you ever have a moment when you wanted to diverge away from the sort of key criteria that you were building the game on and if so what was it to make a game that is not a farming lifestyle simulator or to add to it I think I think as long as again and this kind of answers the first questions right because we have such a loyal audience to begin with so anything that we do we need to make sure that we keep that fantasy of farming lifestyle there so we're trying to kind of like expand that fantasy world and I think you've seen it kind of like through the new all the features that we've been releasing in the last 12 years and even in the last few years they all expand that that fantasy life of create of being that prosperous farmer and I think we never wanted to peot out of that but we also we're always trying to challenge okay what does that mean and what does that mean today and what did that mean in the past and how do we straight stay true to

our promise but still evolve So yeah thank you for the question okay I think we have one last one where was the person yes hello okay games accumulate complexity over time like a 12-year-old game has got a lot lot lot of old features how are you thinking about retiring features or deciding what you keep and what you what you uh get rid of yeah it's a great question I'll keep it at that no uh I think I think it's it's a lot of data and uh openness with our community and I think this is going to be kind of like understanding which which uh features are still kind of like kicking it and still are loved by our players those are the one that we keep or enhance but we also through that understand which which features and which parts of our game are not as clear and and not really part of that main game Loop and that main fantasy and and that's how we decide but

I think it'll be every decision that we make we try to make it with kind of like the balance between the best that that we can do and the best got feeling based on our experience so yeah okay thank you everybody [Applause]