作者：Hamish McKenzie

Supercell是继《愤怒的小鸟》开发商Rovio走红之后，另一家崛起于芬兰的手机游戏公司。也许有不少人甚至还没有听说过这家公司的名号，更不知道它的《Hay Day》和《Clash of Clans》这两款热门iOS游戏吸金能力有多强。

clash of clans(from pandodaily)

据报道，这家位于赫尔辛基的初创公司目前有60名成员，每日收益将近75万美（游戏邦注：这一数据比今年10月初报道的50万美元增长了50%）。对于一家成立两年的公司，以及分别在6月和8月发布的游戏而言，这的确算是不俗的成绩。拥有如此可观的收益，Supercell也确实不需要进行融资，但有传言称曾有人欲出价至少6亿美元向该公司投资，但该公司并未回应这一说法。

Supercell创始人Ilkka Paananen在最近的电话采访中也没有确认日进75万美金以及6亿美元投资的消息，但表示公司最近收益确实超过了《纽约时报》在10月份报道的数据，并且iPad和iPhone收益比例相当均衡。

Supercell游戏采用免费增值模式，支持玩家付费购买虚拟道具。与多数知名手机及社交游戏不同的是，这家公司采用的是iPad优先的策略。

Paananen表示，“我们将平板电脑视为终极游戏平台。我们的整个战略就是为平板电脑创造最好的游戏体验，而这个战略的一个有趣附加效应就是，这些游戏在iPhone也发挥了更出色的表现，因为针对更高规格的设备设计游戏，也会让游戏在智能手机上呈现更优质的效果。”

据称这家初创公司的运营成本极低，每天开销仅为6万美元。但Paananen对此说法也没有给予肯定回复，仅表示他们的用户获取成本确实很低，因为其多数流量属于自然下载量。这些游戏具有内在社交性，所以可以通过口头进行传播。

而Paananen所指的社交性，并非让用户邀请好友参与游戏而后给予奖励的这种伎俩。Supercell是按照设计社交产品的原则来创建病毒传播性。“我们根本就不使用那些伎俩，我们只是设计能够让玩家与好友和他人一起玩得更好的游戏。”

例如，在战斗策略游戏《Clash of Clans》当中，玩家可以创建自己的部族并邀请好友加入。而后他们可以在其中聊天甚至攻打好友的部族。所以这些游戏并不需要通过Facebook传播《FarmVille》式的垃圾信息。Paananen相信这种内在的社交性才能是下一代社交游戏的走向。

即使Supercel收益仍然与10月份报道的情况相同，它也仍然能够在苹果抽成之后，创造1.3亿美元的年收入。据称该公司如果保持目前发展速度，明年收益甚至有望达到4亿美元。当然，这只是“如果”（想想Zynga游戏《Draw Something》之前以及现在的对比情况）。Supercell的这两款游戏还都是新作，所以还很难讲Supercell究竟是不是一时之热的现象。

但该公司的收益也有可能更为增长。《纽约时报》报道曾指出，《Clash of Clans》连续数周在60多个地区的苹果iPad游戏营收榜单登顶。Paananen则在采访中表示，《Hay Day》这款农场游戏中的玩家每日达成4000万笔交易（该游戏支持玩家在其中的农贸市场出售农产品）。在App Store，《Hay Day》有3万8770条用户评价给予4.5颗星，《Clash of Clans》则有4万780条评价给予4.5颗星。

Supercell拥有风投支持，但鉴于目前发展形势乐观，它并不需要太多外部资金。该公司至今仅融资1500万美元，其中有1200万美元来自Accel Partners。值得注意的是，Accel也是Rovio投资者。现在也有传闻称Supercell将被收购，Zynga和EA可能就是潜在买主。但从EA和Zynga目前的股市行情，以及Supercell利润持续高涨的对比情况来看，Supercell出售公司的可能性不大。

Index Ventures合伙人Ben Holmes表示，由于在App Store榜单登顶，Supercell在风投领域极受青睐，“Supercell与King.com一样，是为数不多可以持续推出可靠游戏的公司之一。这两家公司明年都很有希望在收益、利润和估值方面赶超Zynga”。

游戏邦注：原文发表于2012年11月16日，所涉事件及数据以当时为准 。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Supercell: The cash-rich, little-known Finnish startup that could soon be worth $600M

hamishmckenzie By Hamish McKenzie

On November 16, 2012

There must be something in this Scandanavian water (other than ice, that is).

The next big thing in gaming comes to you from the land of Angry Birds and unless you saw this brief New York Times blog post, you’ve likely never heard of it. And even if you read that, you have no idea how much cash their hot iOS games, “Hay Day” and ”Clash of Clans,” are actually pulling in. Since landing in Sweden, I’ve heard numbers from one source with knowledge of the company’s finances that make Valley app companies look like a humble paper route. Another source confirmed that they were in the right ball park.

How much are we talking?

The 60-person startup is pulling in close to $750,000 every day, according to our reporting. That’s 50 percent up from the $500,000 the Times reported in early October. Not bad for a two-year-old company, whose two big-earner games launched in June and August respectively. With those numbers, Supercell clearly doesn’t need more funding, but we’ve heard they’ve been offered a substantial round to cash out the founders at a heady price of at least $600 million. No word on whether the deal has been accepted or how deep discussions got.

Reached today by phone, Supercell founder Ilkka Paananen wouldn’t confirm the $750,000 figure or the funding deal, but he did say revenue these days is “quite a bit more” than what the company disclosed to the Times in October, and that the revenue is split about evenly between iPad and iPhone.

Supercell’s games are free to play, but they have an in-game currency that players can use to buy virtual items. Unlike a lot of the better-known mobile and social games, the company takes an iPad-first approach.

“We view the tablet as the ultimate gaming platform,” Paananen said. “The entire strategy is to create the best possible game experiences on the tablet, and the interesting side effect of that strategy is that we also make the games better on iPhone, because designing the games for a higher spec is also what makes the games better on the smartphones.”

We’ve also heard that the startup has very low costs, spending as little as $60,000 a day. Again, Paananen wouldn’t confirm that figure, but he did say that user acquisition costs are very low, because the vast majority of its traffic is organic. The games spread by word of mouth because they are inherently social, he said.

And by social, Paananen doesn’t mean gimmicks like giving away free stuff if you invite friends. Supercell builds virality through designing a social product instead. “We absolutely didn’t do that [gimmicky stuff] at all,” said Paananen. “Instead what we do is we design our games so that they are better if played with other people and your friends.”

For instance, in the combat strategy game “Clash of Clans,” players can create their own clans and invite friends to join them. Then they can chat with, and even attack, their friends. So there’s no need for FarmVille-like spamming via Facebook. Paananen believes this inherently social approach represents the next generation of social games.

Even if Supercell’s revenues stayed the same as what the company reported in October, it would stand to make $130 million annually, once Apple takes its cut. We’re told that if its growth rate continues the company could be raking in as much as $400 million in revenues next year. Of course, that’s a massive “if.’ Just ask Zynga’s investors how predictable hit games are. DrawSomething was once on one out of every five phones in Sweden and Norway and seemed unstoppable. The games are both new, so it might be difficult for Supercell to sustain the buzz.

However, there’s also a chance the revenues could increase further. In one of the very few articles about the company from outside the Nordic region, the Times reported that “Clash of Clans” occupied the No. 1 slot on Apple’s top-grossing iPad game charts in more than 60 countries for weeks. Today, Paananen said that “Hay Day,” a farming game that allows players to trade produce at farmers’ markets, is registering 40 million trades per day. In the App Store, “Hay Day” has a rating of 4.5 stars from 38,770 reviews. “Clash of Clans” has a rating of 4.5 stars from 40,780 reviews.

Supercell has venture backing, but not a lot given this torrid growth. It has raised $15 million, including $12 million from Accel Partners alone. Accel is also an investor in Rovio. Supercell has already been the subject of acquisition rumors, with Zynga and EA fingered as chief suspects. But with those companies’ stock languishing, and Supercell’s profits surging, there is no incentive to sell.

Ben Holmes, a partner at Index Ventures who covers the Nordic region, says there is intense interest around Supercell because it has been topping the App Store grossing charts. “They are one of the few companies, along with King.com, who are now on a regular and reliable basis producing winning games,” he said. “Both companies have very good shot at overtaking Zynga in terms of revenue, profits and valuation over the next year.”（source：pandodaily）