Despite reaching 60 million downloads, Supercell acknowledges the initial marketing campaign for Squad Busters as a mistake
At the briefing dedicated to the relaunch of Squad Busters, the key developers of the game admitted that they were overly optimistic about it at the start.
"One of the mistakes we made when launching Squad Busters was assuming that it would appeal to multiple user groups. We thought it could interest casual, mid-core, and even hardcore audiences simultaneously. Games like that are akin to unicorns—they don't come around often. Unfortunately, Squad Busters was not one of them. Moreover, it might have completely missed the mark regarding the compatibility of control and gameplay: while the controls are highly accessible, the game itself is quite intense. Plus, there's a lot of strategy involved. However, to uncover its depth, one has to play very intensely. So we decided: okay, maybe this is not a game that will appeal to a casual audience. Of course, we want the game to be understood by many, but eventually, we focused on more experienced mobile gamers, adapted the game for them, and started promoting it among them," stated Rob Lowe, head of marketing at Supercell.
In addition, during the briefing, it was announced that:
- the game's downloads have surpassed 60 million installs;
- the core development team consists of 50 people;
- most of the team is based in Helsinki, but the game is also being worked on in London and Shanghai;
- the campaign featuring live stars wasn't that effective (again, explained by the focus on the casual audience);
- the team didn’t "peek" at the playbook of those who are leading the development of Brawl Stars at Supercell (although the gameplay of Squad Busters has become much closer to it after the update);
- the team doesn’t regret how the launch of Squad Busters went. On the contrary, they believe that such a launch allowed them to identify and fix foundational issues in the game.