Supercell CEO谈游戏营收下滑以及公司未来战略

原作者：Dean Takahashi 译者：Willow Wu

Supercell 2018年的财政状况并不乐观，但具体的数字还是会让其他游戏公司眼红。这家芬兰公司是《荒野乱斗》《皇室战争》《部落冲突》等游戏的创作者，年度营收达到16亿美元，纯利润6.35亿美元。

相比之下，Supercell 2017年的营收为20.29亿美元，税息折旧及摊销前利润（EBITDA）为8.1亿美元。2016年的情况更好：营收23亿美元，税息折旧及摊销前利润10亿美元。

通常，公司就要因此而忧虑了，但是Supercell并不是一般的公司，他们可以凭借283人的团队达到这样的盈利水准——也就是大概人均创造224万美元利润、565万美元营收，这在游戏行业内是无人可及的。CEO Ilkka Paananen的发言也表明了Supercell在游戏乃至资本主义领域仍与绝大部分公司不同。

supercell(from develop-online)

“有些人问我说，作为CEO，我是否对公司收入相较去年（以及前年）下滑而感到失望，”他在博文中写道。“能逐年增长当然是一件好事，但是，对于我或者是我们整个公司来说，关注短期的营收指标并不是首要任务。我们担心的是如果你开始受到短期财务状况的驱动，你可能会匆匆发行一款平庸的游戏，或者过于关注盈利。而我们聚焦的是打造优秀的团队、创造属于Supercell的文化，让这些团队专心开发好游戏。”

按照芬兰的法律，Supercell需要每年提交一份财务报告。公司曾经受到政府的资助，Supercell在2018年缴了1.22亿美元的税款，这让他们颇感自豪。Paananen说他们没想过要合理避税。

去年，Supercell发行了新手游《荒野乱斗》，这是自2016《皇室战争》以来的第一款新产品。

“隔了这么长的时间，玩家们都迫不及待想要斗一局了，”Paananen说。“我猜在Supercell内部也有一些自我施加的压力。这正是为什么我为《荒野乱斗》团队而骄傲——他们为了让游戏达到预想水准投入了很多心血。这就是我们理想中Supercell的运营方式：我们应该只发行那些对玩家来说体验最佳的游戏，那些我们为之自豪的游戏。如果这需要耗费很多时间，那也没关系。”

在这一年间，《荒野乱斗》社区所创造的地图占到了总数的近三分之一。发行之后，《荒野乱斗》在五十多个国家地区都登顶下载榜，包括一些主流亚洲市场：日本、韩国、台湾等等。已经有八百多万人玩了这款游戏，评价达到4.5/5。它尚未在中国市场发行。

Paananen说公司的梦想就是制作能够让玩家一直玩下去、能够被永远铭记的游戏。为此，Supercell为《卡通农场》和《部落冲突》发行六周年举行了庆祝活动。

《部落冲突》《皇室战争》在这一年中都有了重要升级，《皇室战争》有了全新的部落战，《部落冲突》更新了两个村庄的大本营等级还有部落战联赛。《海岛奇兵》和《卡通农场》团队也为游戏的重大更新投入了很多时间。

大约有2500万玩家参加了游戏内的挑战活动——也就是《皇室战争》全球锦标赛的预选赛。

“我们的前四个游戏《卡通农场》《部落冲突》《海岛奇兵》和《皇室战争》，它们的累积销售额分别都超过了10亿美元，”Paananen说。“更令人兴奋的是两个Clash游戏的合计收益就超过了100亿美元。换句话说，这比《指环王》和《哈利波特》等系列电影大片的票房收入还要高，与《魔兽世界》和《英雄联盟》等知名系列游戏的收入不相上下。”

他继续补充说“对于从2001年就进入手游行业的人来说，这些数据一直在提醒我们这个行业已经走了多远，以及游戏带给我们的快乐。在我的成长年代，玩游戏的基本上都是我这样的少年。如今，各个年龄层、无论男女都在玩游戏，玩家们遍布世界各地，有各种不同的背景，这是一个几十亿人参与的娱乐活动。”

上月，Supercell的活跃玩家小组有2500万——这些都是玩家自己组织的，每个小组平均有10人。

虽说Supercell有足够的资金聘更多人才，但他们还是选择维持小规模团队，为的是最大限度地提高创新能力和质量保证，减少官僚作风，从而创造出最好的游戏。

“在2018年，我们迈出的最大一步就是决定在上海建立游戏工作室，”他说。“在Supercell的早期，我认为我们可以一直呆在一个工作室，保持简洁。但是在进一步了解中国游戏产业之后，我的想法改变了。我很欣赏中国优秀游戏开发者对于社交玩法的想法，我觉得他们能每个月为玩家带来那么多高品质内容很了不起。那里有很多东西是值得西方开发者学习的。”

中国分公司将会为全球市场开发游戏。但是Paananen强调Supercell依然会坚持把未达到团队标准的游戏淘汰掉。

“Supercell就是游戏连环杀手，上海团队也会按照一贯以来的高标准制作游戏，”他说。“我们只会发行那些让我们值得骄傲的游戏，那些我们认为玩家愿意玩上好些年的游戏——所以上海工作室的第一个游戏可能要等上一段时间了。”

Supercell也在通过投资来扩大影响力，其中包括Redemption Games的游戏团队、Trailmix、Everywear Games，以及先前的Space Ape、Frogmind和Shipyard Games。

“几年前我们开始投资，因为我们想对全球游戏市场有更大的影响力但同时也不需要过度扩大公司规模，” Paananen说。“相比传统的投资者，我们的策略有所不同。关键在于让团队拥有百分百的掌控权，就像我们公司内部的团队一样，促使他们全身心投入到游戏开发中，尽其所能做出最好的游戏。避免一般投资者会带来的负担。”

谈到2019年的计划，Paananen说《荒野乱斗》会有很多更新，游戏很快就会在中国发行了。

《海岛奇兵》会迎来一次重要的战舰更新，《卡通农场》也会有，但是可能要等久一些了。同样地，《部落冲突》和《皇室战争》团队也在着手更新内容。

为了给玩家提供更多内容，Supercell选择和值得信赖的外部工作室合作，这对他们来说还是第一次。Supercell在工具和技术方面也加大了投入以提高工作效率。

“对于《荒野乱斗》这类游戏来说，关键在于定期加入更多角色、更多皮肤、更多场景，不能间隔太久。”Paananen说。

除此之外，他还说当下在做的很多项目都有可能会被砍掉，有一个或者两个可能会撑到beta测试阶段。

Supercell还成立了一个新型教育机构——名为Hive Helsinki的编程学校。

“它的特别之处在于没有老师、没有班级也没有课本。学生们要根据实际的编程任务(包括游戏开发) 以小组为单位完成。任何人都可以参与线上测试（测试你的逻辑技能）来申请学校，无论你是编程新手还是老手都没有关系，”他说。“另外，学生也不需要交学费。Hive Helsinki是基于法国巴黎IT在线教育网站Ecole 42的理念所创立，它在IT教育界是一种前所未有的尝试。Ecole 42工作团队允许我们效仿，非常慷慨。我们创办这所学校的主要目的之一就是让所有人都可以学习编程。不管你是来自社会哪个阶层、有着什么样的背景，你都有机会成为世界顶级的程序员。网上测试开放不到一个月，已经有几千人通过了考试，进入了下一个阶段，这是个非常好的开始。”

最后，Paananen说Supercell会在2019年成为一个完全的碳中和（指碳排放量减低为零，或通过环保措施抵消排放）公司。这并不是一件简单的事，Supercell员工每年旅行累计超过2000天，并且他们有数以亿计的玩家，有6400台服务器在运转。今年他们将和类似Southpole这样的公司合作，抵消碳排放，成为一个碳中和公司。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Supercell had a bad year when it comes to financials for 2018, but theses would be enviable for any other game company in the world. The Finnish maker of games such as Brawl Stars, Clash Royale, and Clash of Clans generated a profit of $635 million on revenue of $1.6 billion.

That was down from 2017 when Helsinki-based Supercell reported earnings before income taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) of $810 million on revenues of $2.029 billion in 2017. That was also down from the year before in 2016, when Supercell reported EBITDA of $1 billion on $2.3 billion in revenues.

This could be a cause for concern at any other company. But Supercell, which Tencent mostly owns, is no ordinary company. After all, Supercell was able to generate all that profit with just 283 employees — or a profit of roughly $2.24 million and revenue of $5.65 million per employee. Such numbers are unheard of in most game publishers and studios. And the CEO’s message about the year shows that Supercell continues to be unlike almost any other company in gaming — or capitalism.

“A few people have asked me whether as the CEO of the company I feel disappointed that the numbers went down from the previous year (and the year before),” said Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen in a blog post. “Well, sure, of course it would be great if the numbers always grew from the previous year. But, focusing on short-term financial metrics has never been the most important thing for me or for us as a company. Our concern is that if you start to be driven by short-term financials, you may be tempted to release average quality games too early or be overly focused on monetization. Instead, our approach is to focus on building great teams and creating a culture where these teams can focus on building great games.”

Under Finnish law, Supercell is required to report its financial picture once a year. The company once received a government grant and Paananen that his company was proud to pay $122 million in taxes in 2018 to Finland. He said the company does not try to “optimize” its taxes.

During the year, Supercell launched Brawl Stars, its first new mobile game since Clash Royale in 2016.

“Given such a long gap, everyone was very eager to get Brawl out,” Paananen said. “I guess there was even some self-imposed pressure within Supercell to do so. This is precisely why I am so proud that the Brawl Stars team took all the time they needed to get the game to where they wanted it to be quality-wise. This is how we all want Supercell to operate: we should only release games that are the best possible experiences for our players; games that we ourselves are proud of. If this takes time, then so be it.”

During the year, the Brawl Stars community created 19 of its 65 maps. After launch, Brawl was the No. 1-downloaded game in more than 50 countries, including some significant Asian markets like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Eighty million people have now played it, and its rating is 4.5 out of 5 stars. And the it hasn’t launched in China yet.

Paananen said that the company’s dream is to make games that are played for years and remembered forever. To that end, Supercell’s Hay Day and Clash of Clans both celebrated their six-year anniversaries.

Clash of Clans and Clash Royale saw major updates during the year with Royale getting its own breed of Clan Wars, and Clash of Clans receiving new Town Hall levels for both villages as well as the new competitive endgame Clan War Leagues. The Boom Beach and Hay Day teams devoted their time to working on something big that they’ll bring to their players this year, Paananen said.

Around 25 million players participated in the in-app challenge events that served as qualifiers for the World Finals of the Clash Royale League.

“Each of our first four games – Hay Day, Clash of Clans, Boom Beach and Clash Royale — have now all grossed more than a billion dollars in lifetime sales,” said Paananen. “What is even more amazing is that the two Clash games have reached a combined ten billion dollars. To put that in of context, that’s more than major film series like The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter have made at the box office, and ranks alongside iconic games franchises like Warcraft and League of Legends.”

He added, “For someone who has been in mobile games since 2001, these types of figures are a great reminder of how far our industry has gone and all the wonderful things that games bring us. When I grew up, games were mostly played by teenage boys like me. Today, games are played by people of all ages and genders. Gamers come from all kinds of backgrounds, from all countries around the world. And there are billions of people who play.”

Last month, there were 25 million active groups playing Supercell games, all of them created by players, with an average size of 10 players.

While Supercell can afford to hire new employees, it chooses to remain small, with the goal of maximizing innovation and quality, and minimizing bureaucracy, resulting in the very best games, Paananen said.

“One of the really big steps we took in 2018 was that we decided to start building a game studio in our Shanghai, China office,” he said. “In the early days of Supercell, I thought that we would always be a single studio company – just to keep things simple. But I changed my mind when I got to know the Chinese games industry better. I admire how the best developers in China think about social gameplay and also how much new quality content they bring their players every month. There is definitely a lot us Western developers can learn.”

The Chinese studio will make games for the global market. But he noted that Supercell continues its policy of killing games that don’t meet its teams’ own standards.

“Supercell is a serial killer of games, and we will also maintain this high bar for any games created out of our Shanghai studio,” he said. “We only release games that we are proud of and that we believe would be played for years – so getting the first game out from Shanghai might take a while.”

But Supercell has expanded its influence by investing in game studios, including investments in teams at Redemption Games (Carlsbad, California), Trailmix (London) and Everywear Games (Helsinki).

These studios join previous investments in Space Ape (London), Frogmind (Helsinki) and Shipyard Games (Helsinki).

“We started to make investments a few years ago because we wanted to make a bigger impact in the world of games, without needing to grow our internal studio too much,” Paananen said. “Compared to traditional and usually very financially driven investors, our approach is different. The key idea is to give the teams full control of their own destiny, like we do with our own internal teams; enabling them to focus entirely on developing the best possible games, without the usual burdens that come with investors.”

As for 2019, Paananen said that Brawl Stars will have a lot of updates, and it will debut in China soon.

Boom Beach will have a huge “Warships” update soon and Hay Day will get a big update, though perhaps on a longer time table. The Clash of Clans and Clash Royale teams are also working on updates.

To produce more content, Supercell has partnered with some trusted external studios. That’s a first for the company. And Supercell is also investing more in tools and technology to be more efficient.

“What all of this means for a game like Brawl Stars, for example, is more brawlers, more skins and more environments being added more frequently,” Paananen said.

He said that while many games in the works may likely be killed, one or two games may make it to beta testing this year.

Supercell will also launch a new type of coding school, Hive Helsinki.

“What makes it unique is that it has no teachers, no classes or books. Instead, it is based on practical coding assignments (including building games!) that students do in groups. Also, anyone can apply to the school via an online test that tests your logic skills, no prior coding experience is required,” he said. “The school is also tuition free and based on a revolutionary concept called Ecole 42 (developed in Paris). The people behind it were kind enough to let us use the same concept here in Helsinki. One of our big goals behind the school is to make learning to code inclusive and accessible for everyone. We want creative people from all walks of life and from all kinds of backgrounds to have an opportunity to become world class coders. The school is off to a good start; the online test has been open for a less than a month, and already a couple thousand people have passed it and made it to the next qualification phase.”

Lastly, Paananen said that Supercell will become entirely carbon neutral in 2019. That’s not easy, as Supercell employees travel more than 2000 days per year, and with hundreds of millions of players, Supercell consumes energy for 6,400 servers. This year, the company will use carbon off-set services like Southpole to become carbon neutral.（source：venture beat）