Destroy the failed game to create a truly successful game

In Silicon Valley there is a mantra: "rapid failure, often failure." "It means that you should come out of your failure and do something, learn from failure, and apply what you learn from it to your next iteration, and get better results." Then you will fail again and repeat the process again. Theoretically, you will get a good result in a short period of time by learning from successive failures.

It is following this mantra that Superell is very adept at experiencing failures in creating successful games. This may be surprising, as it is a company that dominates the top-selling game of iOS and Android platforms. Games like "Cartoon Farm", "Tribal wars" and the recent "clash Royale" have created more than $5 billion worth of supercell, which is undoubtedly a huge commercial success.

But the result is based on the many supercell games buried by the development team. At the GDC conference in March, Jonathan Dower, Supercell's game artist and director of the game, said that of the 10 games they had created in the past, 7 were destroyed during the prototype creation process, and 2 were killed during the soft release, eventually only the clash Royale was released for the global market.

Now "Clash Royale" has appeared in the forefront of mobile phone rankings. This is a good thing for the 1 games that have gone through 10 attempts and finally stood out.

In an interview after GDC, Dower explains when developers should destroy the game they are creating. "I think the situation is different for each team and every game," he said. But once you think of ' other games ' or mind-set games that you ' should ' create, you may have negated the game you're creating. I think it's a good indication, too. ”

It is important to note that this is a good way to supercell, but it is not a common way for all game types. Others argue that a game that kills a lower-than-average level should stick to it and devote a long time to developing it. A recent example is the Rocket Alliance, a game that took 7 years to emerge.

Some people think that Supercell is a company that can afford to destroy the game before it is released, but many game developers do not have the financial power to discard the content they have invested in a lot of their time and experience.

Dower said: "Supercell does have some good luck with game creation, but it's not a company with an absolute security backing." It also destroys many games before releasing any successful content. ”

Even if there are objections to destroying the game often, there are those who think it should be carefully analyzed when a project is dragging developers back or preventing creators from creating better content. "We all have emotional connections to these games, but in some ways we have to think about whether we should deal with them," Dower said in a speech at GDC. ”

It may be argued that a company like Supercell will perform a comprehensive analysis when deciding whether to destroy a game, and of course there will be various parameters during the discussion, but for dower, their decisions are ultimately rooted in the feelings of a small number of veteran game creators. Dower said that in Supercell, the performer will not go to sentence or pardon a game of death. Here, the decision to live or die is made by the person who created the game.

This also leads to what happens when someone on the team disagrees with the fate of the game in question. Dower's team, in the sauna, decided to destroy the Smash land, which was in the soft release phase, and he also said it would be better to discuss it with colleagues to make a decision.

"If there is an objection to the game's fate," he said, "We will continue to discuss the issue and eventually resolve it." If someone on the team really thinks they can keep the game going, then I'll let them prove that we decided to destroy the game. ”

Supercell has 180 staff from around the world, 70 of whom are developers. Dower said that it is not necessary for the developers to decide the survival of the game without the advice of the management, which is a major principle that supercell follows.

"One of my basic qualities is trust," says Dower. We welcome those who can make all kinds of important decisions. The role of the CEO here is to trust these people. Otherwise, our entire working system will be affected. ”

Via:kris Graft Gamerboom

Destroy the failed game to create a truly successful game