Supercell president: "If we want to be one of the very best mobile game companies in the world, great live ops isn't enough"

• Supercell acknowledges its recent track record with new game launches has not met expectations with Bach highlighting issues around scaling teams too early and validating ideas too slowly.
• The company’s strategy remains focused on continuing to invest heavily in live games while also ensuring it can bring new titles to market at meaningful scale.

Over the last few years, Finnish studio Supercell has reshaped how it operates behind the scenes.

That continued in 2025 when divisions for game tech, business operations, marketing and more were unified under a single umbrella, the live games unit, led by Sara Bach, who was appointed promoted to the role of president. Meanwhile, the new games business effectively operates separately through the Spark program, AI Innovation Labs and Supercell Investments.

CEO and co-founder Ilkka Paananen described the restructuring as the “next evolution of Supercell,” acknowledging that the organisation had become “bigger and more complex" as its games scaled globally. 

The changes arrived at a time when long-running titles such as Brawl Stars and Clash Royale continue to have seen revenue surges and lulls. More pressingly, it comes as the developer searches for its next big new hit.

Squad Busters, released globally in 2024, was shut down after failing to meet expectations. Monster-hunting title mo.co had a limited launch last year, but is currently undergoing changes. So with live games thriving but new hits harder than ever to launch, Bach's role sits at the centre of how Supercell balances its past success with its future focus.

Speaking with PocketGamer.biz, Bach discusses her new position, why live games are entering a new phase and how the company plans to remain competitive in an increasingly demanding global market. 

Building around live games

The core of the job transition for Bach to president seems to be aligning Supercell's wider organisation with its game teams.

“The honest version is that for a long time, player demand was ahead of what we were actually able to deliver,” she explains. “Our games had massive audiences asking for more and we weren’t always set up to deliver at the pace and quality those players deserved.” 

Bach shares that over the past two years, live teams have accelerated content output, events and live operations, producing greater gains in engagement and revenue.

“My job now is to make sure the rest of Supercell genuinely helps those teams keep going. Technology, data, business operations, people. All the things that sit around the game teams.” 

Crucially, Supercell’s famous “cell” philosophy remains intact, she claims.

“The game teams still own their games, their roadmaps and their results. That hasn’t changed."

The reality of live service

Supercell’s growth has created a new leadership challenge, as growing teams means figuring out how people work together at a different scale. The developer was previously famous for its small teams and outsized returns.

Bach notes that she sees her role not as adding needless processes for the sake of it, but as “getting sharper" about what actually helps. 

“If I do my job well over the next few years, the games should get better faster and the teams should feel like Supercell is working with them, not around them.”

Supercell has notably seen large spikes in revenue for the hits of yesteryear like Brawl Stars and Clash Royale. The latter recently celebrated its 10th anniversary and almost $5 billion in lifetime player spending. But those new highs have been temporary - though Brawl Stars may be on the rise again.

“I don’t think the goal is to choose between spikes and stability. You want both,” Bach says. “Big moments come from taking real creative risks and we should never stop doing that. The more important question is what happens after a spike. Can you learn from it and stabilise at a higher level? Both Brawl Stars and Clash Royale did that.”

Bach claims that those games spiked and then settled at “baselines meaningfully higher than before” in both engagement and revenue. Though ultimately declines do inevitably arrive, Bach views them less as a failure and more as a natural rhythm of player behaviour.

“Players move between games and that’s fine. Our goal isn’t to be the only game in someone’s life. We’d rather be one of the games players come home to.”

Bach notes that recovery depends more on reinforcing the fundamentals than on chasing viral moments. She notes that when players come back, they should feel both nostalgia and familiarity with the game they loved and that there’s something fresh awaiting them. 

“I wouldn’t say it’s about luck, it’s about creating the right conditions. It’s about making sure the game is always worth coming back to. This is what ‘forever games’ is all about. I don’t think the lesson is ‘just repeat the spike’, the better lesson is to understand what truly resonates with players.”

A new model for launching games

While live titles remain strong, Supercell has openly acknowledged challenges in producing new hits. Bach is candid about some of the lessons learned. 

“If you look a our track record with new games over the past several years, it hasn’t been where we want it to be. We’ve killed a lot of games.”

One issue Bach comments on is scaling teams too early before validating player demand, she notes that “we’ve been too slow to validate whether something is really working and too slow to move when it isn't".

She explains that in some cases, teams got too big too early and spent too long building before getting enough signals from players, which she notes as an “expensive way to learn”.

Bach says that this has shaped much of what Supercell is thinking about when it comes to structure now, and that the team should spend most of its energy on the core creative idea and getting it in front of players quickly. 

“They shouldn’t have to build every surrounding capability themselves too early. Instead, the company should provide that.”

She adds: “It’s less of a handoff and more of the company gradually wrapping around a team that’s earned it. The creative ownership stays with the team. The support scales up around them.”

Chinese competition

In his annual blog post, Paananen claimed that since 2020, 22 games have grossed more than $1 billion. Of those, 20 came from developers in China, Japan and South Korea. While Supercell has struggled, some top Chinese developers have flourished building global hits and sustaining them for years. Bach admits there are many lessons that can be learned from their success.

“Many Chinese developers are exceptionally strong at producing content quickly, operating at high tempo, using data well and incredibly using AI in practical ways.”

Bach shares an analogy she said she thinks about when looking at how Chinese developers operate.

“We've historically served players more like a traditional set menu. Fewer courses, bigger moments, more emphasis on each update landing well. A lot of Chinese games are more like a large shared table with many dishes on it. More variety, more frequency, more chances for different players to find something that resonates. I think there's something valuable in that.”

Bach states that teams want to learn from this speed and operational rigour, though she does say that "we shouldn't copy any mindset where quantity becomes more important than quality".

Practical AI

Discussing other market changes and trends, Bach speaks about artificial intelligence, which is already influencing workflows across Supercell but with an emphasis on practical applications.

“We believe AI can put superpowers in the hands of creative teams with great taste,” she explains. “That’s the frame we use internally. Not AI for the sake of AI, but AI that helps our teams create better experiences for players, faster.”

Bach goes on to explain how much of the value today lies in invisible importance. Faster analysis, more reliable updates and improved player support, and while none of those things makes for a big headline, it does add up to an overall meaningfully better experience for players and for the teams building games.

“The part I think about most is what happens as content becomes easier to make. Because when that happens, taste and judgment become more valuable, not less.” 

For Bach, AI’s purpose is clear: to deepen understanding of players rather than distance developers from them.

Partners and future ambitions 

External collaborators already play a significant role in Supercell’s development model, particularly given the need for constant content delivery in live games. Bach explains how partners have been a meaningful part of how the studio works and is one of the reasons they have been able to keep core teams more focused.

“We don’t really think about it as in-house versus outsourced. What matters is how closely integrated the work is. Some of our partners are literally working from inside our building, day-to-day, alongside our teams,” Bach explains. “At that point, the line between internal and external gets pretty blurry.”

She goes on to say that the game teams still own the direction, but a good partner brings extra capability and play a big role in how teams operate.

Looking ahead, Bach says that Supercell’s strategy rests on two parallel priorities: deepening existing successes while building the next generation of games. 

“Players should expect us to keep investing seriously in our live games,” she says. “These games can still surprise people when you put enough energy and creativity behind them.”

But sustaining leadership requires new launches at a meaningful scale too. 

“If we want to be one of the very best mobile game companies in the world, great live ops isn’t enough. We need to bring new games to market that can reach real scale. That’s probably our single biggest priority alongside the live portfolio.”

Beyond games themselves, Supercell is also exploring how its IP can “live in new ways". Currently, Supercell is developing an animated series titled Clash for Netflix. There is also a Clash of Clans board game in development that was successfully launched on Kickstarter.

Closing thoughts

Despite market conditions that are always changing and slower growth in mobile gaming, Bach remains optimistic about the future. Though she also sees competition extending far beyond the games themselves. 

“The trend I watch most closely is really about attention. Games are competing not just with other games but with more passive forms of entertainment that ask less of people. That worried me a bit, because games at their best are active.”

But overall, Bach is optimistic. The companies that build real relationships with players will stand out, she says. “That’s where I think Supercell has real strengths to build on.”

Supercell’s long-term strategy, she argues, is straightforward in principle, even if it does have its challenges to execute. 

“Keep growing our live games, bring new games to market at real scale and keep improving the foundations that make both possible,” she says. “We’re not entitled to any position in this market. We have to earn it again and again.”

Supercell regularly sends speakers to Pocket Gamer Connects events around the globe. Our upcoming shows include PGC Summit Malmö on May 27th to 28th, PGC Barcelona on June 15th and 16th and PGC Summit Shanghai on July 29th.

We'll also be heading to Helsinki, home to Supercell's HQ, for PGC Nordics on October 20th to 21st.