Clash of Clans Success Story: Secrets Behind Its 10-Year Reign

As a mobile gamer around you about their favorite games, you’ll find Clash of Clans on their list. With a daily earning of $5 million and over 500 million downloads on iOS and Android platforms, Clash of Clans’ success story remains a buzzing topic.

What made this simple game worth millions of dollars? How did it dominate the gaming industry for over a decade? Despite having a freemium model how it earns a massive revenue? 

Let’s decode how the game’s popularity correlates with its financial success!

Clash of Clans: A Brief Overview

Imagine a game where you create your own village, lead an army, and team up with players from around the world to conquer challenges together. That’s the magic of Clash of Clans! Launched by Supercell in 2012, this free-to-play mobile strategy game has been keeping players hooked for over a decade. It debuted on iOS on August 2, 2012, and later made its way to Android on October 7, 2013.  

Here’s how it works- 

You start by building your village using resources that you either produce yourself, earn by attacking other players’ villages, or purchase with medals. But it doesn’t stop there. You can join forces with others by forming clans—groups of up to 50 players. 

Together, you can fight in Clan Wars, exchange troops, chat, and strategize. For an added twist, clans can also develop a Clan Capital, a shared village that represents the collective power of your team.  

In short, it’s not just a game; it’s a blend of strategy, teamwork, and competition that keeps millions coming back for more!

Challenges Faced by Clash of Clans

The journey of Clash of Clans wasn’t that easy. Let me summarize its challenges and solutions quickly before diving deep into its success story!

Go through the following section where we have explained their secret strategies for success in detail.

Secret Sauce of Success

The strategies that led to the success of Clash of Clans are-

1. Strong Core Loop

There is a high interdependence between game elements such as the fact that you need to play and win more to earn gems, the currency of Clash of Clans.  This keeps the game exciting and gives users a long lifetime.

Let me share another mind-blowing fact about this game. Supercell didn’t use any new or creative design skeleton for the Clash of Clans. Instead, they copied and tweaked the design skeleton of the games already doing well. Supercell executed it better than anyone else. Consequently, it won the hearts of the users. 

2. Improve Constantly

Supercell made its employees play the game endlessly and provided genuine feedback that helped immensely to improve the game. 

With proper testing and regular updates, Clash of Clans was launched in the US. Why only the US and not worldwide? You may ask. Launching in a smaller market is safer because if there is any initial failure, it would be less risky.

Fortunately, the game was a huge success in the US and ranked at the top spot within three months of its launch. Thereafter, the game was launched in Canada and then worldwide.

But the initial success is not only because of the superb game quality but also because of its marketing strategies. 

3. Free Marketing

This is the first step for any business to reach out to customers. Similar is the story of Clash of Clans. 

Marketing in the US

It featured itself in the app store in the “Best New Games” section. As you know, iOS dominates the US. Hence, getting features in the App Store is not only cost-effective but one of the finest ways to acquire users.

However, landing on a featured placement in the iOS App Store is based on editorial decisions by a team at Apple. 

Marketing Globally

Clash of Clans followed a Free Marketing approach while expanding globally, especially in east-Asian countries- China, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, etc. Here, instead of featuring itself in Play Stores or app stores, it leveraged “Cross Promotional Partnerships” with companies like “GungHo Entertainment.”

You see, GugnHo’s match-three game, Puzzle & Dragons was a huge success in Japan. Hence, this crossover helped Supercell’s Clash of Clans attract a bigger audience.

4. Strategic Use of Paid Marketing

After it gained a significant amount of audience through Free Marketing, Supercell opted for Paid Marketing. Not to shell of money but to get better ROI. 

Facebook Ads

Facebook ads served as a perfect filter to target the audience based on age, income level, and interest in mobile games.

Here, Supercell’s prime objective was to acquire “Whales”.

Whales?? Well, these aren’t those aquatic whales. 

In the gaming industry, a “Whale” is a player who spends lots of time and money in a game, especially in free-to-play games with microtransactions.

Although whales are a small percentage of players. But they contribute a large portion of a game’s revenue.

They often buy all the skins, unlock all the characters, and are willing to spend a lot of money to get ahead or look cool in the game. 

Whales are also important to the gaming community because they often serve as trendsetters and influencers. Their spending habits can shape the direction of game development and the introduction of new features.

Wanna boost the revenue of your game? Target whales!

Traditional Ads

This is a conventional advertising method to show one’s presence in front of a large audience. It is quite difficult to track. They spend heavily on traditional ads. The expenditures were-

• Year 2014: $34.6 million
• Year 2015: $59.8 million

However, it was fruitful for Clash of Clans because the ROI was positive due to the large target audience of Clash of Clans.

Influencer Marketing

Influencers already have a dedicated fan following that helps businesses gain an audience easily. Hence, Clash of Clans partnered with notable audiences like PewdePie, Glaladon Gaming, and Chief Pat. Here, the influencers used creative strategies such as-

• Themed Challenges
• Collaboration Events
• Sneak Peaks of new game updates

For instance, take the “Clash-a-Rama” campaign which was quite successful due to the perfect blend of animated shorts, humor, and game lore (stories). These features helped to engage both new and existing players. Various top influencers ran this campaign.  

As a result, the following particulars increased-

• User Engagement
• New Player Acquisition
• Revenue

5. Focus on Daily Engagement

Do you know what the prime objective of a gaming company is? To acquire the players and retain them by keeping them engaged with the game. The whales would be organically engaged but what about others?

For them, Clash of Clans created “Habit Loops” that involves a cycle of Trigger, Action, Reward, and Investment. 

Let me describe them one by one-

Trigger

This is the first step to get the user’s attention. A trigger refers to specific elements that encourage the users to interact with the game.

A Trigger can be external or internal. 

• External Trigger: An external trigger refers to the app notification that shakes the emotion of the user. For example- “XYZ has attacked your village”; “Upgrade your troops now to defend yourself”, etc. These notifications are quite effective in making the player open the game. 
• Internal Trigger: It refers to the in-product prompt or certain tasks for which you need to open the app multiple times.

Action

Once the user is triggered, he/she will definitely click on the notification. This process is simply called “action.” Other players can only attack when you’re offline. Hence, you need triggers and come into the “action mode” to defend your village in the game.

Reward

This is the feature that attracts the user and encourages him to complete the task. However, you must note that the reward feature of “Clash of Clans” is not guaranteed. Yes, it uses a “Variable Reward System”. Such as Attacking an XYZ clan and earning this much reward. As you can see, in this task the winning is not guaranteed. Hence, the reward system attracts a player but doesn’t offer a reward every time.

Investment

This process encourages the user to invest in the game with efforts like training more troops or building a better town hall. 

What’s the result of all these efforts? You ask. Well, this strategy led to an average of 12 sessions per day per user. 

6. Revenue Earning Strategy

Clash of Clans makes most of its money from Whales who spend as much as $12k. But that’s not sustainable in the long run. Hence, it needs to acquire new users and retain them. 

The Clash game uses the currency called gems. 

You get the first 500 gems for free during the introduction of the concept. Some are spent on the tutorial to speed up building and troop training.

Then you earn the Gems while playing the game (wins). The more you win, the more you earn the gems. 

Do you know, the Clash of Clans sprinkles a few free gems here and there to build your habit of playing the game?

However, if you want to go ahead of contemporary players quickly then you can purchase different amounts of gems using real money.

Here’s how–

The bonus gems make your purchase worth it!

Note: We have explained the success stories of various entities. Such as-

• Talabat Success Story: How did it start and turn profitable?
• Maruti Suzuki Case Study: Origin & success story in India
• The Dabur Success Story! How did Dabur set up its empire?
• The Success Story of MBA Chai Wala: How did it scale?

Current Scenario: How Clash of Clans is doing now?

If you are wondering about the present scenario of Clash of Clans, then let me tell you that it still remains a prominent name in the mobile gaming world. Let’s look at its different aspects-

Financial Overview

• Lifetime Revenue: Since its launch in 2012, Clash of Clans has amassed over $10 billion in total earnings, cementing its place among the highest-grossing mobile games ever.
• Annual Revenue: In 2023, the game earned approximately $516.3 million, which is a 22.9% decline YoY from 2022’s $671 million. The drop followed a smaller dip of 3.2% in 2022 compared to 2021. 

User Base

Despite the revenue decline, Clash of Clans maintained a stable player base with about 75 million monthly active users (as of 2022). However, this number has decreased from prior years, highlighting challenges in retaining player engagement.

Market Position

• Clash of Clans continues to be Supercell’s flagship game but is facing growing competition from its sibling “Brawl Stars.” In March and April 2024, Brawl Stars outperformed Clash of Clans in revenue for the first time.
• Globally, Clash of Clans still ranks among the “top-grossing mobile games.” securing the No.47 spot in revenue rankings as of March 2024.

Recent Developments

To counter declining trends, Supercell has significantly expanded the team behind Clash of Clans, resulting in renewed player spending.

• Q1 2024: Player spending grew by 10% YoY, hinting at a possible turnaround.
• Q4 2023: Spending surged by an impressive 46.7% YoY, reflecting the impact of new updates and improved monetization strategies.

Wrapping Up Clash of Clans Success Story

If you think Clash of Clans is losing its charm, think again! Despite the ups and downs, this game has proven it’s not just a passing trend. With over a decade of dominance, a loyal fan base, and fresh updates rolling in, it’s clear that Clash of Clans knows how to stay in the fight. 

Whether you’re a casual player or a clan war veteran, there’s always something new to pull you back in. And with Supercell’s recent moves to reignite player excitement, who knows? You might just find yourself spending more time building that perfect base all over again!