Ilkka Paananen has said he made a “big mistake” keeping Supercell’s game teams so small for so long.
In Supercell’s annual business update, the CEO outlined his concerns that the developer’s teams had “pushed themselves too hard to deliver on their plans” and promised to add more headcount where needed.
The update also revealed that the Finnish giant raked in revenue of $2.24bn in 2021, with pre-tax profits of $852 million.
But the overriding theme of the update was the health of its game teams.
“We had already noticed that the combination of the fully independent teams, very high ambition and small team size, fueled by remote working caused by COVID, led to situations where sometimes these small teams pushed themselves too hard to deliver on their plans,” he said.
“In a few cases, extra content for the players came at the expense of peoples’ health and even led to symptoms of burn out.”
He added later: “We need to do a better job building teams that are healthy and sustainable for the long term.”
