The Cell Structure: How Supercell Turned the Traditional Org-Chart Upside Down

Hello. Uh good morning. Thank you all for coming. I I know it's it's quite early. So, my name is Ilkka. I'm from a company called Supercell and I will talk today about the way that we are organized. Um uh which we call the cell structure. But before I begin, I I want to emphasize that, you know, I'm not here today to tell you that or trying to convince you that this would somehow be the right culture or or the best culture. Uh obviously, it has worked out very well for us, but I believe I'm a firm believer that every company should have their own unique culture, which is like of course designed uh that company in mind. So, instead, my goal today and my sort of a hope is that that at least some of you guys would walk away from this room with maybe one or two new ideas how you can make your organization uh better and the

culture culture better. So, I wanted to begin with a story about one of our our games. So, I think it was almost exactly um 6 years ago. I remember it quite well. We were in in this meeting room uh with most of the Supercellians at at the time and we were talking about new game ideas. So, at that time we had plans to release a couple of games that year, but we had no idea whether those games would be successful and and at that point like none of our games had been successful. So, we kind of we felt that we good to have like some game ideas in our back pocket. And one of the the ideas that was presented by this guy called Jon who presented his prototype which he called the Summoner and that that game essentially was a kind of real-time PvP game. And I remember people like really liking the prototype, but then like lots of concerns were expressed as well. And I

remember myself for example saying that, you know, I just love what you've done here, but I just don't believe real-time PvP games would work on mobile. I wish it was asynchronous or something along those lines. And uh and and so this is like 6 years ago. And I remember that like uh when if you fast forward a couple of months from that moment, then the actually we we did get very lucky, but but our games Hay Day and Clash of Clans actually became relatively successful and and and we had all of our developers start with those two games. So, then we actually didn't have time to pursue any of the ideas that were presented in in that meeting. But then a couple of years went went by and and and and two other Supercell people Nikko and and Visa, they needed a game idea and they sort of remembered the Summoner prototype that was presented at that time. And they sort of picked it up and they were inspired about it and and they just created their own version of it and it was still was a real-time PvP game on on on on mobile. And again, there was sort

of the same skepticism that was around the around the game. Uh but but despite that, they kind of pushed further and and and I even remember this moment with those two that we had a meeting and they came to me and said that they feel like like killing the game. And and I asked like so why why is that? And they said that well, she doesn't see that that many people believe in it. But then I asked that do you guys believe in it? And they said yes. And then I encouraged them to continue and and thankfully then they did. And but then like slowly but surely like like a group of like enthusiasts started to form around this game. But at some point the project um ran into some difficulties and and then Nikko decided that maybe like somebody else should lead this project. And then there was this guy Lasse who who was super super excited what had been done. But the only issue was that he believed that that the game should actually be like reworked completely and maybe they should go back to square one and and build it one more time. And and and on

top of that, the team had the idea that instead of the IP that had been planned for this game code named Scroll, we should actually use the Clash of Clans IP. And you can just imagine like the amount of resistance from the people who had been originally involved with that game. And of course, Clash of Clans at that time was was our most valuable IP, so it was a big call. But you know, Lasse and the team didn't really care about the resistance. They just went on and and decided to do exactly that. And and what's interesting to me is that that even still a few months before the beta, there was quite a lot of people who thought that, you know, just doing this pure uh real-time PvP game, it's going to be like a really difficult thing to pull off on mobile. But but again, Lasse and and the team, they didn't care and and they just powered through and and released it on beta and and then that game is is is Clash Royale and and and obviously it was pretty pretty successful like from the launch. But then the story continues. So, fast

forward again maybe 3 4 months from the launch and and we actually start to face some issues with the community. So, they were not happy with how the game worked. We had an issue like um uh what it was known as a trophy threshold. So, it had to do like with the progress of the players in the game. Uh players weren't happy about that for a good reason. It wasn't a good experience once you get it to a certain point in the game. And then what what really pissed our players off was this thing known as emotes in the in the game. So, what you can do in the game is that in your you can send emotes to your opponents. Um and and and lots of players were sort of using that to to basically irritate the the losing player and that really drove some of players like completely mad. And those complaints had been there from the very beginning, but the team the original team always thought that, you know, like this is part of the game. This is the soul of the game. It's a PvP game. So, we are not going to change it. But then Lasse wanted to do some other things and and and and and then a guy called

Jonathan came and and and he he started to lead the team and there were some other changes. Uh and despite the fact that the all the original creators thought that this was this these emotes are an essential part of the game, they decided to make a call uh to enable the players to mute these emotes. And that of course like most many of the original team members like thought it was absolutely wrong. But yet, they did it. Uh and and because of that and and most of all because of some of the other changes that they had made to the progression of the game, the game started to grow quite quite quickly for the next 6 months and it is still at a very good place place today. So, um I think this story as a whole is a really great example how of our organization works about in good and bad. And and and it's a good example of our culture. And and but I don't think it's a good example of our culture. I'm not telling it because the game eventually was was successful. I'm telling it that, you know, this game game game together despite uh

the fact that lots of people in the organization disagreed what was about to be done like starting from the CEO, uh many of the founders and many other uh sort of a people in the in the organization. But yet, somehow the game progressed and it was released and and and and was uh we were lucky in in a way that it it was successful. So, today I will talk about this this culture and and really like um trying to like tell you guys like what we have found out that what works well and then also like what what hasn't worked and what the challenges have been. And more than anything like what we have learned throughout these these years. But before I actually get into the actual culture and how it works, I want to tell a bit about like what actually led to the creation of it. So, so first of all, a bit about my background. So, unfortunately, I'm not the game developer. I I haven't developed any of our games and none of them have been my ideas. So, I can't take any credit for for the games. And even if I have always loved games

and have been a big gamer, I actually ended up being part of the game industry just by an accident. And it's it's funny to think this, but originally actually I for whatever reason I wanted to be an when I went to the university, I wanted to be an investment banker or management consultant. Until today, I know don't know why. I'm sure I'm very happy it didn't happen eventually. Um and the reason why it didn't happen is that I got really excited about the entrepreneurship at some point and and and I was lucky enough that I bumped into this group of people and they wanted to found their own game company. Uh and it and it just happened to be a game company. It could have been any other company like from my point of view. But these guys wanted to do games and they were all game developers. But none of them were like interested in in in doing any kind of or handling any of the commercial or the business side of the of of running a business. And and they they couldn't afford to you know pay any salaries and and I'm sure they didn't have any other applicants than myself for the job. So, then I finally got the job and and and

and became the CEO of the company. And and that company was called Sumea and this is like year 2000. And funnily enough, we were actually doing or our plan was to do mobile games already at at that time. Uh eventually, the company did okay and it actually was sold to a company called Digital Chocolate, which is actually from here based was from here based in San Mateo. And then my job was to run the European operations of the of the company. Uh and you know, those times were quite different. So, the ones of you who are used to or all of us who are used to like dealing with the app stores, I mean this was a very different time because the distribution was through like carriers and and you had to do like these separate distribution deals with every single one of them. And and it was quite interesting. I actually found this photo from from those times. As you can see, it's a very serious business with a jacket and everything. And just look at that phone like on my lap like uh but the funniest thing about those days is that you were basically selling games to people who didn't really care

about games. Most of them they didn't they didn't play the games and it was just, you know, it's just traditional sales work. I I can't say that I would miss miss those times uh days too too much. But then uh after that I my job was to actually run the global studios organization of digital chocolate and and we had three studios and I guess around 200 people all together in those those studios. And uh So I come from my told you guys my I come from this quite analytical background. Um, like and and sort of myself said my my for some reason my my dream job was to be as a something like management consultant. Uh, and and so I originally took a very kind of what I thought was a very analytical and thoughtful uh approach to design the organization. And by the way like uh since I've sort of created this organization myself, uh I I I believe that I also have a right to kind of criticize it and and you know all all of them funny things and mistakes that I'm going to talk about I mean I those are all like my my mistakes and

uh and the other thing is that that even if if some of this stuff will will sound quite funny, I mean keep in mind that everything was done like with the best intentions. So already at that time uh our goal was to just simply to create the the best best games. But anyway so we my my approach was that I wanted to the company to be very well organized. So like every everybody belonged to their kind of own unit or box and and everybody reported to some somebody and they had this like very well thought out matrix organization. And and they had process for every single thing you can imagine like from creating new games to to many many other things and and everything sort of looked really great on on on paper. And and most importantly uh what we liked about their indicators is that who has the product vision like who ultimately decides what type of games the company does. And and the product vision was very much at the top. So it was myself, it were the three head of the studios and some product managers and and our small group essentially

controlled what the company was was doing. Uh and then like uh what made it probably even worse is that then the organization grew so we hired all of these people and we opened these new studios. Our approach to manage that growth was actually to like even in further increase the control so we added layers of management and we added the amount of uh added new processes to the company because we wanted to control it. And uh I've I thought a lot like in the recent years like uh what sort of drove uh all of those things and and you know it really was like this feeling that I I guess ultimately I had to have that you know I wanted to feel like that I am in control of our destiny and you know having everything all of these written plans and and and and and org charts and everything and processes it kind of made me feel like that we would somehow be in control of our our destiny. That's probably the best explanation that I've come up with. And we exercise this control through

through a couple of processes. I'm going to give you example of two. The first example is is is which I think is relatively widely used in in in the games industry one form or another is this kind of green light process. We call it the YDC meaning that why should digital chocolate build this product. Essentially it's a mini business plan for every game. Uh so basically starting with things like you know what's the market opportunity like uh what's the size of opportunity what does the competition look like how are our games different and or better you know what's the cost budget what are risks so forth so forth. And and and from every single new game this type of document product 10 pages um was was required. And uh and to make it worse I had this idea which I thought was a good idea but it resulted to be a very bad idea. Uh but so my goal was that I wanted to like make everybody in the company feel all

the departments feel that that they are sort of a part of the process and and they can and sort of create a sense of ownership. So I required like the the game developers actually talk to heads of each and every department and sort of to get their sign off or support for this new game idea. So these people would talk to the head of the finance, head of the marketing, head of sales, head of operations to kind of get their approval. And and you can sort of guess where it leads to. Like uh in in these meetings that they had about the green light uh decisions like there was no real discussion because the real discussion had been like before the meeting and and it was like super political process where like the developers would do anything they could possibly can to get an approval from certain people. Uh and and then like and if if if there was no approval from a person then that game wouldn't the idea wouldn't even appear in in this meeting. So the value of the meeting was was close to close to zero. Uh And also like some other problems that that it had was that you know like if you think about it like I mean I mean

nobody has a crystal ball. It's really hard to predict which games will be successful. So then you could make the argument that you know why would this group of people have that crystal ball and why should they be making the decisions. Uh and and one could argue that who really knows the games and and the players best it's probably is the game developers themselves. Also like this process it really favored sort of what I would call like incremental innovation. Like very kind of products that are little better than the existing ones. But and and and the reason is that for you to make a case like what type of product to build the easiest way to build your financial estimate was to look at what already exists in the market and say that okay we are better because of these games because X Y and Z and therefore the revenue estimate it's like we're going to capture X percentage share of this market or something like that. And that was sort of an easiest way to sell this stuff to people who didn't come from games background. So for example a guy with a financial background. I mean that's the language that that person understands.

But what what the problem is that this type of process doesn't favor the truly innova- innovative ideas. Like if you really want to build something from scratch you want to build something that doesn't exist yet you can't build a case like that around it. And and surprise surprise we really didn't have many of those type of games like coming through the the process. And then the the the um the last uh sort of a problem with the uh process was that just you know it required a lots of time from the developers. So instead of them like writing prototypes and and and you know building the actual games they were building pitches which of course isn't a very good use of time. They could use that time for the products themselves instead. So that would be one example of a process. Um Another example is is like that we at some point we introduced this like monthly review uh processes and and we uh they were essentially like status reports from the game teams to the upper management like what's going on. And and the purpose was like that we wanted to

feel in control that and make sure that these games are actually progressing as as we had agreed and and you know are still shooting towards the vision that we had had agreed. And and and what really like made these meetings bad was that they they were also essentially like go no go decision points. So they also were like green light meetings as well meaning that that it it could be that your game gets discontinued uh in in in this meeting. And of course you can imagine what happens. Of course the game teams would come to this meeting very well prepared. They had done all of this work the prior week to prepare for the meeting. They had created a lot of materials just for purposes of this meeting. And after the meeting uh had the game continued they would just throw away all of that stuff and continue where they left off. And at some point I think I figured out that like some teams they literally used one week of every single month just for the purposes of of this meeting. Of course of course that doesn't make any any sense. Also you can imagine the amount of frustration that these developers had when they had to explain uh game stuff

and game development stuff to people who like weren't like game developers at all. Like again like uh you know it was my fault. I was the one who invited this like finance and marketing and sales guys to the to the meeting. Uh it's definitely not their fault but you know of course they had questions and you know it wasn't very productive. And and the last thing about this meeting that again you can imagine the large group of people and very easily lead to this kind of sign by committee type of thinking. So the ideas that would go through are the ideas that doesn't get anybody irritated but then the other hand you know aren't really that great or innovative either because like most of the the big innovative ideas they are uh things like for example Clash Royale that did something new but then you don't really understand it before it's it's out there. And and there were other uh and I could have like a pick some other processes as well but I these are probably the big top two ones on on on my list which really didn't work out. And and the really really interesting thing about all of this is and all of

these processes I said they were put together with best intentions. And but the thing is that despite all of this I mean believe it or not but we were actually able to put out some really great games. So ones of you who who were part of the mobile games industry back back in those days might remember a game called Tower Blocks which was a really big hit for us later on when Facebook just started their gaming platform we we uh released a game called Millionaire City that that got a huge amount of users and there were others as as well. And at some point I started to think that what really is the common nominator uh behind all of these games. And I the more I thought about it more I realized that actually like first of all like all of these games they had a really great team behind uh them. Then two they were released exactly at the right time. So we got the timing right which of course is as mostly to do with with luck. But then thirdly, it also seemed to me that what explained the success is that

the less the management, like myself and some others, less the management had to do with the game, the better were the chances of success. And and somehow these games, these hit games, they just happened, like almost like accidents. And and I once actually joked to somebody that that that we were able to like put out these hit games despite all of these processes that we had in place. And that of course like tells you something like how great these teams and the people there at at the company. And then I like sort of finally got it and it's it's really embarrassing to almost to talk about it because it took so so many years, but it I finally got that these processes, like no matter how well thought they thought out they are, they just do not translate into great games. And then I the kind of thought process continued and and started to think that if the success truly is and is only about the team and the timing and the timing you can't really control because that's about luck, but what you can control is actually the team.

And if it really is like about the getting the best possible team together and and you know having an environment that really like doesn't slow these teams down, so there's like none of this management stuff like it creates friction for the team. If it's all about the team, like what if what would happen if you would sort of build a kind of new type of company, but would only be about people and and and these teams and and having an environment where there is no friction. And and what if actually like a what what if the the the people who would be sort of a superstars of the organization would be the game teams themselves and not sort of the the founders or or the the management. And what would happen if it was actually the teams who owned the the product vision? And then at some point we had this idea that what would happen if we actually turn this organization chart upside down. And and and actually like it would be the game teams themselves who kind of owned their game. And that's what the light bulb up there indicates.

And and then we kind of took this idea even further and thought that uh we could actually think these teams as as they're kind of almost like their own independent companies inside the the greater company. And then at some point somebody suggested that since this is such a radical idea, I mean let's not call them teams, let's call them cells. And then somebody asked that okay, like if that's the case, like what is this whole thing called? And then somebody came up with a word Supercell and that's where the kind of name of the company comes from. But really the the kind of the the the idea here is that there is no central process. I mean every team can be different. And and and you know like that enables us to hire from much broader base of people because you don't have to be like this just like one one type of person to be to get to get hired. And and every team can have their own ways of working. And and we sort of wanted to see that as a source of strength rather than a source of of weakness. Well, then at at some some point

somebody asked that okay, but if it's all about the teams, like what do you do then? Like what is the role of of management in in this type of case? And and we thought about it a lot and and and and really the the the answer seems to be that it's it's our job to to put together the best possible teams and it's our job to make sure that these teams have the best possible environment to work in. And by best possible environment I don't mean any I don't mean a fancy office, for example. I mean I mean an environment where these teams can have the biggest possible impact and there's no friction in in the organization. Also one of the things that we kind of got excited about was this idea that if these teams make the decisions, it probably like will increase the the kind of speed of execution, but also because they don't need approvals, but it will also increase the quality of the decisions because then the decisions get to be made as close to the player as possible. Because it's obviously these guys who know the games best and they probably also know their

users or the players the best, so it just makes makes sense. Uh and and and these days I I I think that our organization it it works the best uh then like I make as few decisions as possible. Like and you know I have almost we've sort of made it a goal that that most of the decisions, if not all of them, they should be made at the team level, not at that sort of the management level. And and you know to describe that goal I've even like started to say to our people that my goal is to be actually the least powerful CEO. And I'm meaning that you know the less decisions I make, the better the organization works. And sometimes this sort of leads to some really interesting situations. So uh for example, when we we work with some uh uh outside outside companies, like for example with partners uh uh platform partners, for example, like it it it always takes them a while to realize that at Supercell the most important meetings you can possibly have, they are with the game teams. So

for example, if they're meeting with me, it in most cases it's waste of their time because at the end of the day it's not me who's making these decisions. And they usually don't believe it the first or even the second time we tell that to them, but maybe after third or fourth time and then they start to see like how we work, it's suddenly they they they sort of they get it. Or or there are like things like uh recently we when it was the International Day of the Girl, we part or I participated in the in this initiative called Girls Takeover. So the idea is that this uh say a teenage age girl comes and you know takes over the job of the CEO and and makes all the decisions for for one day. So and they asked me to participate and because I thought this is a very important initiative, of course I wanted to participate, but I kind of pre-warned them all all of these girls, Sonia, that that I I'm happy to support you and we will do this, but I just want to warn you that you might be actually quite disappointed because the fact is that I

make very few decisions in this company. But you know she took the chance anyway and and and I think she did the right thing by touring the studio and and talking to the game teams, which is like the always the most interesting part of of my day. But you know it is just interesting like how how this type of way of organizing it it changes how you also deal with some of the external parties. One one other idea that that's that's very close to our culture is this idea of of the power of a small team. So at the previous company we we had like seen in our our own eyes that how powerful these like these very small group of people can be if they are just the right people and and work well together. It almost seemed that uh that uh and it's counterintuitive, but the scarcity of resources, meaning the number of people it it sort of uh it it leads to better prioritization, better focus and then that in turn leads to better quality. And and you know we we see saw

it at the previous company time after time and also we've seen it at Supercell. So quite often when things are aren't working out for us, one of the de facto solutions that we have is that let's make the team a bit smaller. Uh and and and and you know let's try to put together the smallest possible team. So um it probably isn't a surprise that that in our at Supercell we don't have any any kind of green light process. But then the question is that that gets often asked that how do you guys decide what games to build? How do you sort of quote control it? And and actually like the only thing that we sort of control is the team and the team's composition and and you know of course I have to be able to trust the lead of the team. But after that, you know it's up to the team to develop the games they want as long as they develop the games in a framework we've agreed on. I mean our dream is to create these games that people would play for years and that are targeted for a widest possible audience. But that's really is the framework and within that framework the team is is free to do what

they want and build the game that they want. Also we are known for like killing a lot of our games. So how do we how do we do that then? Well, at Supercell I would say that two entities have like control. So one is the game development team itself and then the other one is players. So and the team is in control in full control during the the development phase. So when we still don't have any hard data or metrics, it's it's the team and only the team who can decide whether the game will continue or not continue and be killed. But then like when the game goes from the development phase to a soft launch phase, so we or the beta phase, and and we start to actually get some like uh metrics on the players, then the control shifts in a way from uh uh from the team to the players because then it really is up to the players. And of course we will be observing the metrics and if they're good enough, we will uh

uh launch the game globally. And what's good enough? Well, that's something that we always decide before the game goes to beta and we tell the metrics to everybody in the company just to make sure that we are honest to ourselves. And after that it's actually quite simple. Like if the game reaches the metric goals, we will release it to global and if it doesn't, we'll kill it and we'll we'll do something else. Uh we this this model has a couple of couple of like challenges that are important to understand. Um The first challenge is it's an interesting one. I mean the thing is that lots of people do not believe that this is true. Like not even after they've joined, at least for the first month or so. Uh many people outside the company believe that this is some kind of a PR trick. So you know people like me would come to conferences like this in the hope to talk about it and then it's attract talent to the to the company, but and and it's just a PR thing and it doesn't really isn't true. Um but but that's obviously not not the case and it wouldn't make any sense uh because people discover it very

quickly when they when they would would join us. And it has happened to me like so often that you know, somebody comes in uh is with the roster for a couple of weeks and I meet that somebody at the coffee machine and and and that person goes, "Hey Ilkka, I have to confess you something that I actually didn't believe like this independence thing when when I joined, but I but now I've realized that it actually is is true." The other thing uh that is challenge for us that like outside looking in there's this misconception about the the the model. There are lots of people think that a Supercell is is somehow this just this small happy family where anybody can do whatever they want and not care about the the results. And that really isn't true at all actually. Um I mean, what actually keeps this whole thing together and act as a glue is this our very high quality bar. So, as I just said, you know, our goal is to create these games that people would play for years and years and years. And that's a very high bar as as you guys know. And and then if you combine that with a completely transparent information

sharing, so every single team knows exactly how all the other teams are doing just because we share all the metrics to everybody in the company. And also these teams have to give updates to the rest of the company quite regularly. So, uh so and and it's very apparent like how the other teams are doing. So, so the combination of the high quality bar and that is very transparent makes it sort of a high performance organization where people really want to like always uh get to the bar and and and and even even higher. And and you know, as I said, like whatever doesn't meet the bar, it actually gets killed, which of course is always a hard hard decision. And and you know, like in our organization the fun part to talk about this always the independence thing. I mean, of course everybody wants to be a part of an independent team or small team that can do what they want. The harder part is to talk about the other side of the same coin, which is responsibility. And and the way we think about it that every single member of a team, they are responsible towards each other and to all the other

Supercellians. And that's a that's a very very big responsibility. And and and it also means that in our in the our culture, we don't think that the the responsibility lies with the management. I mean, if there's a problem, we expect the teams themselves to do something about it and not become of a management to to to interfere. Uh And and and you know, that actually results in in in a lot of like killing decisions. So, like I mean, I I believe it's actually easier for people to kill their work if it's not working out then they can when they are in full control of that by by themselves and the decision is is is is theirs. So, um uh for example, I a guy called Jonathan um he I think he was here speaking like 2 years ago about a game called Smash Land, which he was the lead of and game that we dearly loved and and uh uh and and he was telling the story here in the same conference about how he they they uh typical Finnish way, even if Jonathan comes from New Zealand, I think

they had a meeting in a sauna with the team and then they had uh and the game was in beta and it was almost reaching the beta metrics, but just almost, not quite. Uh and and they had had this show of hands that okay, like how many of the the people in the sauna believe that this is the best game they will ever do. And I think there was very little hands. Uh so, which in which and then they decided in that evening to kill the game. And then I think Jonathan sent this email to everybody in the company informing. And I remember that very well because I happened to be traveling here and I was checking my emails in the morning. I said, "Okay, like they they actually decided this game to kill this game." And I I felt really sad about it because one, I loved the game myself. I I played it a lot and whenever I went to home, I I I played it a lot with my kids. And I said, "Okay, how I'm going to how I'm going to explain it to this to my kids?" Uh two, I felt really sad for the guys and for the team. I know they had worked super super hard for for that game and and then they had to kill it. But then I also felt very proud. Like I mean, just

think about like it's amazing that that these people have like poured their heart and soul to this game that everybody in the company loves and it's very close to these metrics and yet they think that they can do better and they kill it. So, I just felt proud about the uh the the those guys uh and and the team at at that time. And you know, we do kill a lot of games and we are known for that. So, between our game number three and four, so between Boom Beach and Clash Royale, I believe we had developed 10 games to relatively advanced state and we out of those 10 we killed nine. And the one that uh we didn't kill was was Clash Royale. And and of course like killing games, it's definitely not fun and failing is not fun. Uh but still like we we've actually tried to take some inspiration from Pixar. They they often say that failure is an essential and inevitable part of the creative process. So, I mean like without failure, there wouldn't be any hit games either. And and you know, if you're not failing, it just means that you're not your bar isn't high enough and you're not taking enough risk. And that's how we try to

think about it. It doesn't make failing any any easier, but but you know, that's the kind of a the the our way of thought about it. Okay, um um I I want to like uh close my talking about some of the learnings uh uh that we had over the years and some of the challenges uh So, and this will sound self-evident, but I still need to say it. Uh I mean, this model is exactly as good or as bad as the teams are. It it really is all about the teams. And and like from this perspective, it's actually it's interesting. Like we actually like originally when they founded the company, we didn't say that the best teams make the best games. We said that the the best people make the best games. And it took us like many years to actually realize that actually it's not about the people, it's it really is about the teams. And and you know, putting together like a great teams is super hard. And and and to sort of use a sports analogy, like what we

realized over the years is that the best team, it's not necessarily the one with the best individual players, but the team that plays best together. And and you know, putting together such a team, like it's it's it's not easy and I I don't know if there's even lots of people have tried to put some science around it, but but still at least in our experience, the only way to really know how the team is working, it's just to put together the team and see how how they work together. Uh the other challenge is that you know, I talked a lot about how we love the the kind of small size of the teams. And and and yes, there's a lot of great things about it. When you have a small team, you don't really need like any layers of hierarchy in the team. You don't need process, you know, everything can be planned on a whiteboard. You need very little meetings because everybody can hear each other out. They're working in the same room. You know, the the size of our new games teams are like two to seven people. Live games maybe 10 to 17 people um to give you guys an idea like how small these teams are. And as I said, we believe that the all of this

actually leads to better quality. And it's a way more fun to work in in in a smaller team. Uh but it also creates challenges. One really interesting challenge that we actually didn't realize early on is that it actually like for some people it it can create a relatively stressful environment. So, the combination of like having a very high quality bar and then this idea that there's like no it's only about you because there are no processes. It really is about only about you and the team, of course. Uh and then that combined with the small team size, so you know, everybody basically is designing a game and you know, there are very little like specialization like uh in in the team. So, so that combination like that can become stressful. And you know, we've actually done a quite a lot of work to like make that stress go away, but that's a hard thing to do. And then the other um thing that that is uh a challenge for us and I don't think we've like have been very good at solving this so far is that how how do we kind of create content fast enough for our players given the small size of the team?

Another a double-edged sword is is is you know, this idea that you have very little like visible structure. And again, there's like tons of things that we love about it, but the challenge that comes is that the uh it sort of may it may seem uh chaotic uh like especially early on and and you know, we had had have had a lot quite a learned quite a lot of lessons for example about onboarding. Like like many years back, say 4 years back, it was probably like a really difficult to join Supercell because you would just come in and somebody might in the best case show where you there's your seat and give you the laptop. And but then, you know, when you're on your own. And and and but then finally they realized that they really have to invest to this and now we are like way way way better at at that. But you know, like in certain uh places you have to have structure and it and it's especially important for the for the new people. Uh sometimes people ask I mean, we still don't have any HR. So, we do have recruiting and of course we have office

people and admin people, but we don't have like HR people. Uh and and people ask that if people and the teams are so important to Supercell, like why on earth don't you have HR uh person um or somebody who's responsible for HR? And my response always is that well, that is exactly because people are so important to us. So, I don't believe that you can somehow outsource HR to a third person. I mean, we if there are any kind of HR issues, we want them to be dealt with between the lead and that person themselves. I don't we don't want to have like a third people um uh in involved there. But it creates some challenges at at at times. Also, as I'm sure you've already figured out, like it's almost impossible to reach consensus in a culture like like ours. And and you know, like many of our games, I would say most of our games, we have like four four games have faced like strong kind of I would call it almost like internal opposition or people who have just like

disagreed about the direction of the game and and you know, have fought fought that we shouldn't even be building this game in the first place. And just talk about Clash Royale and all the twists and turns. The other example could be a game called Boom Beach, which was our game number three. I still remember this meeting there, myself and all the game leads. So, every leader of a game team sat, including the lead of a Boom Beach. And and and we had a like a like very heated discussion about Boom Beach and people were not happy about it at the time. And then we like again had a show of hands that okay, how many people believe that this game should be killed? And every single person in that room, with the exception of the Boom Beach lead, wanted to kill that game. And then we we had this really interesting discussion that okay, like like all of us except you, like all of us we want to kill this game and we don't believe in it. But then again, like if we now kill it, like at the same time, not only do we kill the game, but we will also kill the culture. Because I mean, after that, you know, we couldn't

say that Supercell is all about these small and independent teams who like are responsible. And if we make the this decision to kill this game, all of a sudden the responsibility is not with the team anymore, it shifts to us. Because then it would be us who who who make the make the call. And then, you know, we we decided that okay, out of these two options, like we are still we are here in for the long term and culture is so important. So, you know, you guys should just do the game. And then again, thankfully they did and it's it's it's been a big big hit for us. So, we start try to like and we borrowed this from Jeff Bezos from Amazon this phrase that disagree and commit. But you know, like we try to like enforce this idea that even if you disagree, you can still sort of stand behind the decision. And and you know, and and the reason why you can stand behind the decision is that you trust the team who has made that decision, even if you disagree. So, so that's that's how we can think

about it these days. But still we have these heated discussions and and I think they're really good and and essential part of the the culture. The last learning is is this one. Uh It it really is interesting, but this traditional approach and which and by traditional approach I I'm talking about stuff like top desire to do like top-down management, desire to control stuff like from outside the team, desire to create rules and processes and and you know, all the stuff that I just talked about. It's it's almost like gravity. Like you know, it it sort of it pulls you like all the time like towards it and and you have to like almost fight back like every single day that it doesn't happen. And it happens in in in in all kinds of situations. And and and and the interesting thing is that that like fighting this it gets harder and harder the more successful you are. And and like for example, in our case,

like the more successful we become, because we've obviously been like ridiculously lucky like in in with our four games. But the more successful these games have become, like there's always like there's some kind of pressure and natural kind of instinct to do even more stuff and grow the team sizes. And there all kinds of opportunities that you say no to need to say no to. And and and we have to really like like push ourselves to be be always like saying no to all kinds of things so that we could stay laser focused on the on the games. Also, what's even even harder is that you know, it's easy to talk about this stuff when things are going well. But when things aren't going well, it's it's it's way harder. Because there's this like thing that comes to you that that this kind of pressure to kind of get the control back from the teams and give it to some other people. There will be people who will say that okay, we'll we'll come and we'll fix it for this for you. And and and you know, lots of like opinionated people as as I guess most of the great game developers are. So, there's really strong opinions.

And and it's it's it's and we really have to fight strongly against this this idea that for example, there are like some some really really great people in the organization who've done a great great work hit games before. And if they feel strongly about the game that they are not part of, like who gets to decide? And we've always taken the kind of side of the team. And and and we've tried to resist the temptation to give like control to some people outside the team. But it's a discussion that that we have like surprisingly often. And and and as I said, you know, it gets even harder when things aren't going that well. Also, like you you really have to like uh be strong in in this situation where the rest of the organization like completely disagrees with the team. And then you somehow you have to create an environment where first of all, like we we believe that ideas get much better when they're challenged. So, you on one hand you really want to facilitate that type of really honest, even brutally honest feedback. But at the same time

you have to be very clear that nobody, like nobody outside the team, has any authority over the game. It really is the team's decision, like whether you you like it or not. And and you know, like and it's interesting like uh this is the same case with almost all of our games. And even Brawl Stars, which is currently in beta, it's it's the latest example. So, lots of people at Supercell thought didn't like the controls, they didn't like the art style, they maybe even didn't like the game genre. They don't believe that this type of like twitchy action game even belongs to mobile. But yet, you know, the team like like really really believes believes in the in in the game. And of course, like it's according it's in our culture to like give them the possibility to to create the game, put it out and work with the players to to make it a success. And we really like we try to create this environment where you don't ever need to create the proposal about about anything. I mean, you can just do it. And and you know, we just think that

that in our culture where nobody like hopefully creates any kind of internal proposals about anything. I mean, the the minute somebody like proposes to do a proposal, I think no, no, you don't I don't need to see it. I mean, here's my feedback and and you just do it and and prove that it works. And you know, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And if it doesn't, that's fine. Uh And and then like the the last thing I want to say about this that that it also gets harder in case of mistakes. So, say that there was a big failure or we do a big mistake. And you know, we do many failures. We do failures we fail all all the time. Uh and and then I I think it's as I said, it's an essential part of the creative process. But then the the natural human kind of instinct in case of failures and in mistakes is to but okay, let's not do this again. Let's create this rule or process that will prevent this from happening again. And and and we always have to remind ourselves that hey, like people like let's remember like the the kind of foundation of the company. Like

instead of rules, we believe in trusting the people and their common sense. And and you know, like the more we grow, actually actually the less rules we should have as a as a company. But again, there's like this temptation always to to to take take that path. So, I want to close by by saying two two things really. The first one is that I want to emphasize that despite everything that I just said, I mean, culture has not created our our four hit games. I mean, all the credit it it really does belong to the teams behind these games. And and culture has been an enabler at at most. And it it really is all about the teams. And for example, the story about Clash Royale that I just told you, I mean, that would not have happened without those people, those amazing people who were part of the journey and contributed to the to the game. And again, the role of the culture is just to enable these people and

enable these teams to do exactly that. And then of course, there's always that element of of luck that it's related to timing that's in in in the play. The other thing I wanted to say is that that like how we start how I personally start have start to think about culture is that it's almost like how I'd like to think about our games. So, I believe that our games should be getting better like every single month. And as I said, our dream is that people will play this play our games after years, if not after after decades. And and in the and and sort of in in a way our games are never complete. And in a very same way, I believe that culture is never complete either. Like it it can always evolve and it can and it should get better. And I think we are a good example. So, like our culture has evolved on on many different respects and I I do believe it it it it is getting better. It can and it has to get better over the over years. Okay, that was it. As I said in the beginning,

I hope you got some new ideas, at least some of you got some new ideas out of this this talk. Thank you very much. I think we have time for for a few questions. Hello. Yes. Hi. Hi again, Ilkka. Um I had the privilege of working with Ilkka along with I mean at Digital Chocolate. He indeed gave his best to make it a good place and uh uh uh I think at Supercell you have innovated team structures in a different way compared to how we were operating at Digital Chocolate and you've seen excellent results. Congratulations on that. So, my question is at Digital Chocolate while you were making dozens of game, Supercell you made very few of them. So, why was the shift from many to few?

Well, I I I I think like the thing that I've learned the very hard way over the years and and I think many people like who've been part of these companies is the importance of focus. I mean, games is such a competitive industry where so many smart people, so many smart companies that and and you know, we are a small company. So, you can only do a very small small amount of things if you if you want to do them at at the kind best of your abilities. So, it it just believe that it's it's about focus and and you know, focus and quality they just go hand in hand. Thank you. Thanks. Hi. Uh yes, so you talked a lot about you know, the structure in terms of the game designers and the developers. What about the ancillary people that we might have? Let's say the marketing teams or the technical infrastructure teams you know, the IT and stuff. So, is that shared among the teams or is that also you know, each team kind of has to deal with that? That's that's a great

question and that's exactly that's an area where our I think our culture has evolved quite a bit. So, obviously like when we started there was a six of us and five of the six were game developers and again I was the only one who wasn't. And and and and you know, like the the the whole idea started from like thinking about game developers only. But then like then when the model like start to work out pretty well like like when we we thought that okay, why wouldn't we take this idea and apply it to some other teams as well. But it really depends like on the area of business how it works well. It's like and and it is important for us still have the game teams are at the at the center of the company and they sort of like set the pace for the company cuz we want the company to be kind of led by the creative people. But then like for example in the case of marketing like I would say that that our marketing teams they operate very independently, of course. And they're still trying to figure out like what's the best way for this team to be independent enough, but yet of course you need to link them somehow with the game teams because the

marketing needs to kind of communicate the the vision of the game to the players so that it's actually in line with the game is is about. So, how do you kind of combine these two things and and and we've done all kinds of different experiments and I think we're we're still learning. But I would say that the goal always at Supercell Supercell is that we we we'd like to all of these teams to fall into this idea of like independence and and responsibility. But but there are like differences how how these teams have implemented it depending on which areas of the business they they are. Okay, thank you. I'm curious about the transition of the old structure to the new structure and I guess the the shift in mindset needed by everyone, but especially in managers. So, how did you deal with that and what did you do when people in management positions didn't want to lose control? Well, of course this is a this is a a a different company. Of course some of the

same same people, but I I think it's a like combination of like like you know, just having more experience. The actually interesting thing is that I've actually spent I've still spent most of my career in the previous company. So, Sum and Digital Chocolate combined was 10 years of of my life and and now Supercell I think we're getting closer to what is 8 years now. So, I've been at less less time at at Supercell, but you know, like I I believe that those those years have just taught us so so much how to do things and and and maybe maybe also like how how not to do do some things. And and but you're right like the kind of be the the mental shift that has to happen is that you have to like let go. You have to be like you have to like completely trust the these people and and and these teams. And and and as I said it's an easy thing to talk about when things are going well and it's way harder where where when things aren't going that well. But you know, but I think there's like enough of critical mass of people at Supercell and

and and definitely not just the management. We have a very small management team and and we don't even call it that that way, but but it there's so many Supercellians at the company who like seen how this model can work and I and I think we all the Supercellians do a great job of keeping each other like honest about it. So, if and and we we often say that that if you see something at Supercell that it's not in line with our values and culture, it's your responsibility to speak up and and trust me like people do speak up if there's if they see that something is wrong. Thank you. Yeah, hi. Uh being the least powerful CEO that like that is your aim. So, like what what forms your day like what is your day-to-day schedule? And like what are your you know, like what are what is your vision? Like what do you wish to do? Yeah, so what do you say that I actually do? That's that's funny. I actually was just asked about that question not not long ago. And I really had to think about it. So, what do you say that I do? But so, I I I try to spend most of my time

with in the people related things and and uh uh so, I I still interview like every single new employee that comes to the company like no matter what is the position. Uh so, I spend time with with recruitment. I I I do spend time with with all the team leads. Uh And then like of course everything that is somehow related to culture like at some point it will end up in on my desk even though I I firmly believe that you know, but it's not it it obviously isn't not my culture and it's not my responsibility. It's everybody's culture and everybody is responsible for it. But I it's my job to sort of somehow like summarize it for everybody and figure out what the culture is and and kind of keep on like telling telling that message. And then there's like lots of like not like very sort of just boring administrative stuff. So, like for example like everything that is related to like everybody in the company like stuff like you know, compensations and all these things. I mean, thank god they don't do any annual performance reviews

or anything like that you know, those used to take too much of our time and like in the previous company added like no value whatsoever. But so, we don't do that type of stuff. But you know, like there are certain things like for example the compensation review which is you know, very much like on on on my desk and which I think is important. Of course I feel it's very important to make sure that people are compensated fairly. It's combination of those type of things. Thank you. I'll I'll have Thank you for sharing the insight. Actually, I've been working with a very big Chinese game developer and uh Um so, this is more like a question let's say from our president. So, let's say we have a super independent super editing who can make all the decision and execution. And there is a way like say if they if we can do it here, we can do it anywhere. So, what do you think would be you know, the potential risk that the team might go like like really independent like over independent somehow. How I can like convince let's

say our president to give us the you know, the the power you know, like being a cell? That's a great question. I mean, then a long time ago when we actually had to had to raise money and and had to be dealing with venture capitalists. But actually was always the question when they were doing that like how why don't these guys like just leave and you know, set up their own companies? And I told them that that if they do that I mean if they feel like that that you know, that's the if that's the best place for them to develop the best games, that is exactly what they should do. And you know, like the way I think about it is that it's just like we need to make sure that Supercell is the best place for these people and for these teams to to create the best games. And as long as we as long as we we are successful in that then you know, everything else will kind of take care of of themselves. And if if you're not successful then obviously these people will leave if the environment isn't great enough. So, but you know, we and we we we we do talk

about this this this quite a quite a bit and and really like idea I'd like to think the way I think about the Supercell structure that ideally it would combine the best of two worlds. So, you can work in a very small independent almost like startup within a startup and you can do your own thing. But then of course you get sort of the job security and and some of the other benefits that are part of being a bigger company and and and you can you just have more resources. I mean, we can do the reason why I believe it's more fun to work at Supercell today than it was like 6 years ago is that today we can just you know, do much bigger things just you know, because of the resources that we have available for us and we can run after much bigger dreams and that's exciting for me. Thank you. Maybe we have time for one more. Yeah, can I ask? Um so, teams very important obviously. Could you talk about how you form them? How they change over time? Do they change once the game goes live? Like how

do how you manage the composition of them? Uh so, it it it's really is a group effort. So, what we do is that and big part of my job is that I I meet let's limit the discussion to these these game teams. So, I I meet with the game leads. These are people who lead the game teams every single week. So, and and that's actually the only regular meeting that we have by the way. But we have this 1-hour meeting and we just meet usually like without any agenda and we just talk about the teams most of the time. We don't make any decisions regarding the games. We never talk talk about like I mean of course if somebody needs an advice they might raise up the question in that meeting but most of the most of the time we talk about the teams and you know like maybe a team needs help in a certain area and and can somebody like move from this team to that team and you know those type of things and and I wish there was like more science or a process to it I mean because that's the hardest part of our job is to create great teams and and ultimately the only way to really figure it out is

whether a team is is is working is just to put it together and see how it works out and then if it doesn't then you can make changes. Cool. Thanks. All right. Okay. Thank you again.