When Space Ape became Supercell London earlier this year, there was quite a bit of turbulence.
As we revealed in February, the team making Chrome Valley Customs spun out as Offroad Games; Nextbeat was formed as the new home of Beatstar (that team was later acqui-hired by Duolingo, meaning Beatstar is closing); the Transformers team are now at Chinese publisher Yodo1; and around 30 staff left the company, a mixture of layoffs and folks who did not accept a job offer from Supercell.
Now the dust a settled a little, we got the chance to ask new Supercell London boss Lasse Seppänen a few questions over email, ahead of his appearance at Game Republic’s New Horizons event in Middlesbrough this week.
Seppänen could not answer all of our questions, but here are the answers we got about that transition from Space Ape to Supercell in full.
Firstly: can you quickly outline which offices work on which games?
We’ve adopted what we call a ‘dual-location team’ model. That means a single game team might have members in both Helsinki and London, or Helsinki and Shanghai, working closely together as one team.
In practice, our London studio has people contributing to several of our live and new games – including Clash of Clans, Hay Day, Squad Busters, and Mo.co – as well as a couple of teams working on unannounced new games.
It’s worth pointing out that all kinds of roles can be based in London – for instance, the new GM for Clash of Clans, Sabrina Carmona, is based here.
Our vision is that any Supercell team is welcome to hire in London or even relocate here. We’re flexible about where teams are based, because what matters most to us is building the best possible games with the best possible people, wherever they are.
How many staff now work at Supercell London? Is that where the growth is happening?
We currently have 86 people employed by Supercell London, and we continue hiring. All our teams are going through a larger hiring planning exercise right now, so we expect many more open jobs to be posted in the next few months’ time.
We expect jobs to be opened in pretty much all crafts that Supercell has – game development, central tech, marketing, trust and safety and so on.
How much adjustment has there been for those moving over from Space Ape to Supercell?
Supercell and Space Ape had already been working closely for around eight years, and from the very start it felt like we had more in common than not. This level of shared culture made the transition from Space Ape to Supercell definitely easier.
Where did the two companies differ? What efforts have you made to bridge those culture gaps?
When it comes to making games, Space Ape also believed in independent teams – but Supercell takes that autonomy even further. Our teams have complete ownership over their games and make their own decisions, which of course comes with a greater level of responsibility.
There are also some natural differences. Supercell operates as a global company with multiple live games and teams spread across the world. For our new joiners from Space Ape, that has meant access to a much larger support network, but also lots of new people and teams to get to know.
To help build those personal connections, we’ve put in place a very active ‘Visit London’ initiative – on any given week, there are on average around 15 visitors from our other offices spending time in London.
Another difference is our strong appetite for risk. It can take a little getting used to, but we’re already seeing some really exciting developments in the London office as a result.
We also take pride in our Finnish roots, which show up in our straightforward, humble approach to work. There are a few things that can take a little time to adjust to though — like wearing slippers in the office…
With all this going on, has the centre of power moved away from Helsinki at Supercell in recent years?
We’re a global company, and our focus has always been on hiring the best talent wherever they happen to be.
Today, we have two GMs and one new game lead based in London, while some other teams are still led from Helsinki. That mix has become quite natural for us – leadership isn’t tied to one office anymore.
We’ve benefited enormously from the different experiences and perspectives that team members bring from across our international offices. Helsinki will always be our home and HQ – but we couldn’t build great games without access to incredible talent from around the world.
Who is working on forthcoming titles like Boat Game and Project Rise? Are there any updates you can share on those?
We have a dual-location team working on Boat Game, with members based in both Helsinki and London. Project R.I.S.E., on the other hand, is being developed in our Shanghai studio.
I can’t share too many details just yet, but both teams are making great progress. These are two really ambitious projects, and we’re thrilled to see where the teams take them.
I’m incredibly excited about our new London studio, and we’re moving full steam ahead — growing our teams, developing both new and live games, and looking for promising game and game tech startups to invest in. We even have a special track for teams that want to join Supercell and build their own game idea from scratch!
