Clash of Clans Introduction

Clash of Clans is a 2012 freemium mobile MMO strategy video game developed and published by Supercell, a video game company based in Helsinki, Finland.

The game was released for iOS platforms on August 2, 2012. For Android, it soft-launched in Canada and Finland on September 30, 2013. On October 7, 2013, it was released on Google Play internationally.

Gameplay

Clash of Clans is an online multiplayer game in which players build a community, train troops, and attack other players to earn gold and elixir, which can then be used to build defenses so as to protect the player against other players attacking them. The game also features a pseudo-single player campaign in which the player must attack a series of progressively more heavily-fortified goblin villages.

Troops

Troops are divided into Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, Dark Elixir Troops, and Heroes.

• Tier #1 - Consists of Barbarians, Archers, and Goblins.
• Tier #2 - Consists of Giants, Wall Breakers (skeletons that carry bombs), Balloons (Wall Breakers in hot air balloons that drop bombs), and Wizards.
• Tier #3 - Consists of Dragons, Healers, and P.E.K.K.A.s (a race heavily-armored sword wielding mechas).
• Dark Elixir Troops - Consists of Minions (which resemble flying imps), Hog Riders, Valkyries, Golems, Witches and Lava Hounds.
• Heroes - Consists of the Barbarian King and the Archer Queen. Heroes are immortal and can only be trained once. They are summoned by an altar rather than being trained in the barracks like the other troops.

Buildings

To earn and store gold and elixir, players must build gold mines and gold storage and elixir collectors and elixir storage, respectively. Elixir is used to train new troops, carry out research in the laboratory to upgrade troops and to build certain buildings. Gold is used to build defensive buildings and to upgrade the town hall, which allows access to more buildings and higher levels for existing buildings.

There are a number of buildings available to the player to defend their community, including cannons, mortars, bombs, archer towers, and wizard towers. Players can also build walls, which can be upgraded as they increase in level.

Clan wars

A major component of the gameplay of Clash of Clans is clans facing off against one another. Clan leaders and co-leaders can begin wars against other clans. Each clan is then given one "preparation day" and one "war day." When a player attacks a member of the opposing clan, they receive stars based upon the amount of destruction they cause to the opponent's community. Each player is limited to two attacks per war, and the team with the most stars at the end of the war day is declared victorious, with players receiving bonus war loot if he/she use their attacks in the war and a one more war win record in the clan description.

Gems

Aside from gold and elixir, the game also uses gems as a currency. Gems can be awarded for reaching certain milestones and completing certain achievements, but the main way to acquire gems is to purchase them using real world money. Gems can be used to speed up every aspect of the game; from construction time, to troop training to lab research. They can also be used to purchase more gold and elixir.

Critical reception

Clash of Clans has received generally positive reviews. The iOS version holds an aggregate score of 74 out of 100 on Metacritic, and 80.00% on GameRankings.

Gamezebo's Leif Johnson was impressed, scoring the game 4.5 out of 5. Although he felt the gameplay was heavily skewed to encourage the player to purchase gems, he praised the addition of a single-player campaign. He concluded that "Clash of Clans is a simple game, but that's more of a strength than a weakness. It's simple enough to provide quick, painless matches on an iPhone in an idle moment, and there are enough different units to choose from in the battle mode to make playing against other players endlessly rewarding. Best of all, the option to fight against NPC goblins gives Clash of Clans a small edge over similar strategy games that rely almost entirely on player-versus-player combat."

Pocket Gamer's Peter Willington was equally impressed, scoring the game 9 out of 10 and giving it a "Gold Award". Reviewing the game several months after it was released for iOS devices, Willington praised the game for requiring real strategy to play. He wrote that the gameplay was built on the progression of "requiring more and more sophisticated units, asking you to strategise and really think about which elements you should focus on building within your camp." He concluded that "Clash of Clans is a superb game, freemium or otherwise, with more nuance than most give it credit for. That's why it's passed the test of time since its launch and still has an active community devotedly constructing elaborate fortresses in the hope of becoming invincible."

148App's Rob Rich scored the game 3.5 out of 5, writing "It's great to play an online freemium game that doesn't shy away from the single-player experience but also offers up some honest-to-goodness direct interaction, which is a very rare combination these days. It probably won't warm the hearts of any haters out there, but it does give genre fans something with a bit more action and strategy than they might be used to."

Modojo's John Bedford was less impressed, scoring the game 3 out of 5. He was critical of freemium gaming in general, writing "The novelty hasn't just worn off this particular style of greedy gaming, it's shriveled up and condensed itself into an infinitely dense singularity of self-loathing." Of the game itself, he concluded "This is a game that follows in the footsteps of no small number of titles that have made feverish demands on our wallets in exchange for just a slightly thicker slice of the gameplay. It's possible you have an unending appetite for these micromanagement titles, in which case we recommend getting heartily stuck into Supercell's latest game. While Clash of Clans brings something new to accompany its competent but unexceptional empire gameplay, for most of us it'll be a case of too little, too late."

Commercial reception

The game has been very successful for Supercell. As of April 2013, Supercell had only two games on the App Store, Clash of Clans and Hay Day, and had grossed $279 million. Daily revenue was at $2.4 million, with 8.5 million daily players, and Forbes projected a revenue of between $800 million and $1 billion by the end of 2013. They ultimately earned $892 million (compared to $101 million in 2012).

Clash of Clans became an App Store top 5 download between December 2012 and May 2013, and this success has been described as helping to usher in a new era in conjoint gaming on mobile devices. In 2013, Clash of Clans was the third highest game in revenue generated on the App Store and Google Play.