How Brawl Stars became a mega hit and why Squad Busters didn’t

Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen has published his annual blog post on the state of Supercell, delving into the success of Brawl Stars and the lacklustre launch of Squad Busters.

The blog post was released alongside the company’s financials, in which Supercell declared it achieved a record $3 billion in non-GAAP revenue. You can read the full breakdown of its financials here.

Brawl Stars success

The rise of Brawl Stars to become Supercell’s flagship game is no secret in the mobile games industry and has been covered extensively.

Paananen called the surge in the game’s revenue over the past year “historic” and said he had “never seen” a title years into its lifecycle see growth like it. 

“Brawl Stars doubled, tripled, quadrupled (and more) its metrics, especially players, engagement, and revenue,” he stated.

Paananen said amid the structural changes at the company over the past two years, Supercell has grown its live teams to as many as 60 to 80 staff. However, much of the company’s focus was on its former flagship title and still very lucrative Clash of Clans.

According to Brawl Stars GM Frank Keienburg, said one of the biggest factors in Brawl Stars’ growth was the impact of scaling the team. Another element, he said, was the lack of pressure on the team, given the greater company focus on Clash of Clans.

“Always going for the biggest ideas meant in practice that we shipped two to three big features per update, each with a 50:50 chance of being successful,” explained Keienburg.

“Now we still take some of these big bets every update, but we also made space for a series of smaller ideas that maybe have a 90:10 chance of being successful, have the potential to incrementally improve the game, but likely don't have the same potential downside. 

“Essentially it's about a better balance for risk taking. Predictability in outcomes vs. potential (and risk) of big ideas. The team is fearless today, but not reckless.”

He added: “Involved team + less pressure = higher levels of creativity, high appetite for risk-taking, better decisions → better updates = win players’ trust and their time.”

While Brawl Stars took the headlines, all of Supercell’s games saw revenue growth year-over-year in 2024.

Squad Busters’ failure to launch

Since launching in May 2024, Squad Busters, Supercell’s first global release in five and a half years, generated more than $100 million in revenue in its first seven months. However, with each of the developer’s previous titles generating over $1 billion, the performance is not at the level the company has become accustomed to.

Paananen noted it has become “very hard to break through with a new game”. 

“It has become so hard that some companies (or so I have been told) have essentially given up on creating new games, and will just try to seek to buy them when they get to scale,” he said.

On why Supercell didn’t test the game for longer and decided to launch the game early in such a market, Squad Busters lead Eino Joas said the title had “good early metrics” from 120,000+ players in its most recent closed beta, and that it was a favourite among its creator community.

He also noted Supercell’s determination to ship a game as a key factor.

“Finally, it had been five-plus years since launching Brawl, and as a company we really wanted to ship a great new game,” said Joas.

“We wanted to make sure we do not fall into the trap of ‘analysis paralysis’ and wanted to be bold, and take risks. We believe that taking risks is a critical part of Supercell culture. We do not want to become a company that is so tied up with success that we don’t dare risk failure.”

Joas added, however, that while in hindsight there are “many aspects of the launch we might have done differently”, the team still believes it was the “right call” to ship the title.

“Our initial goal, as always, was to make a game for the broadest possible audience,” he said. 

“And while we succeeded in getting a huge audience interested in the game, the audience mix ended up being quite different to what we originally had imagined. Trying to make a game that appeals to everyone ended up it not being perfect for anyone.

“Casual audiences have a hard time finding it since it looks like a battle game, something they are not naturally drawn to. For midcore audiences the game appears too simple, easy, lacking depth and feeling that it is a skill-based game. In truth, the game has quite a bit of depth layered in, but that depth only starts unfolding after playing for a longer time. 

"Soft launching the game globally and taking more time with it perhaps would have given us indication of the true audience and what they want — or perhaps not. We will never know.”

Paananen said the Squad Busters team isn’t satisfied with Squad Busters and that it will be making a number of “fundamental changes” to the game moving forward that it believes will fit with its core audience.

Speaking to PocketGamer.biz, Paananen felt Squad Busters was off to a “promising start” but that the team’s aspirations for the title are way higher. He admitted that title was “nowhere near their ambition level”.

“Everything that they’ve learned from the Squad Busters launch we can now apply to any future game launches,” he said.