Supercell Raised $130M, Made $179M Last Quarter(techcrunch.com)
techcrunch.com
Supercell Raised $130M, Made $179M Last Quarter
http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/17/supercell-round/
3 comments
From the Forbes article(http://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2013/04/17/is-thi...):
"Most game studios have an autocratic executive producer green-lighting the work of designers and programmers. Supercell’s developers work in autonomous groups of five to seven people. Each cell comes up with its own game ideas. They run their ideas by Paananen (he can’t remember ever nixing a proposal), then develop those into a game. If the team likes it, the rest of the employees get to play. If they like it, the game gets tested in Canada‘s iTunes App store. If it’s a hit there it will be deemed ready for global release. This staged approach has killed off four games so far, with each dead project a cause for celebration. Employees crack open champagne to toast their failure. “We really want to celebrate maybe not the failure itself but the learning that comes out of the failure,” says Paananen."
The rest of the head count are these cells with failed launches.
"Most game studios have an autocratic executive producer green-lighting the work of designers and programmers. Supercell’s developers work in autonomous groups of five to seven people. Each cell comes up with its own game ideas. They run their ideas by Paananen (he can’t remember ever nixing a proposal), then develop those into a game. If the team likes it, the rest of the employees get to play. If they like it, the game gets tested in Canada‘s iTunes App store. If it’s a hit there it will be deemed ready for global release. This staged approach has killed off four games so far, with each dead project a cause for celebration. Employees crack open champagne to toast their failure. “We really want to celebrate maybe not the failure itself but the learning that comes out of the failure,” says Paananen."
The rest of the head count are these cells with failed launches.
I Love this game too. And I can't believe they are making so much money out of this game. Addictive.
HR department (2 people?) Sys admins (1? maybe 2?) Design department? (4 or 5?) Programming? (4 or 5?) Management (4 or 5?) Marketing (1 or 2?) the website is nothing special, but lets call it 1 person (or a programmer takes care of it on their down time)
maybe a team prepping the next game to be release? another 5 or 10 there (half design, half programming)
I'm counting 40 or 50 max.
Love Clash of Clans though - perfect time waster - not happy you have to buy gems ($50 spent in the last month that I've been playing it and it takes to long to earn them otherwise) but thats why games are free and they have in app purchases...