Supercell & Mediatrade – 7 Years of Cooperation and Continuous Development

Mediatrade has served as Supercell’s technology partner in audiovisual productions for seven years, being responsible for designing, building, and supporting the studios located in Supercell’s own facilities.

About the Client

Supercell is a Finnish gaming company founded in 2010, which has launched seven popular games: Hay Day, Clash of Clans, Boom Beach, Clash Royale, Brawl Stars, Squad Busters, and mo.co. Supercell’s dream is to create games for as many people as possible; games that are played for years and remembered forever. The company is built on strong values defined by honesty and an uncompromising commitment to quality.

Client Need

Successful business requires attention to customers. In Supercell’s case, this means addressing the needs of 100 million daily players. This includes active interaction between Supercell and the community -players, content creators, and fans. Dialogue with the community is essential for game development and longevity, and many updates are based on community wishes and feedback. Video is a key tool in this communication.

Supercell’s Community Managers play a central role in video productions. Monthly productions would take significantly longer if they had to travel to an external studio. That time would come at the expense of other work, making an in-house studio a well-justified investment.

How the Challenge was Tackled

As with everything they do, Supercell emphasized high quality and operational efficiency. They wanted a multi-camera studio where their own staff could independently produce both recorded content and live streams with uncompromising quality. In 2017, Supercell held a supplier competition and chose Mediatrade as their partner.

A key factor in choosing Mediatrade was their customer insight and ability to combine different technologies innovatively. Innovation was truly required, as this was, to our knowledge, the world’s first 4K/UHD multi-camera studio operable by a single person. The studio featured a tablet interface through which the client could control cameras, audio recording, use a multiviewer, and start recording and streaming. The studio could simultaneously record five camera angles and two iPads, and play one source, all in 4K/UHD resolution.

The studio was built on the fifth floor of an office building, and the space posed challenges. It featured two ceiling rails for cameras, whose safe use required combining new technologies and designing a completely new operating logic together with Futurice. Ultimately, the corner room of the office building housed 1.5 tons / 40 meters of camera track rails, 2,000 meters of SDI cable, and everything else you see in the picture below.

The studio was taken into use in summer 2018 and hosted hundreds of productions during its lifecycle.

Wood City and Subsequent Studios

In 2021, Supercell moved from Itämerenkatu to its new headquarters, Wood City, in Jätkäsaari, Helsinki. The new space meant a new studio, and Mediatrade was selected to design it from scratch: we participated in construction meetings, assisted the client in planning building systems for studio use, and designed and delivered the new studio solution according to the client’s wishes.

The production model shifted more towards a film production setup, and the studio was named the Film Studio. It includes two separate set areas: one with a large curved chroma key wall for virtual productions, and another with a set wall for video podcasts. The studio features a video matrix with versatile connections and multiviewer options, with wireless camera connectivity. The studio enables multi-camera recording up to 8K resolution.

Completed on schedule, the studio has been in daily use since it opened. Mediatrade continues to support Supercell as a studio maintainer and technical support partner for both Supercell’s staff and external partners operating in the studio.

The Wood City Film Studio has been a successful concept, and in 2022, Supercell decided to build a replica at its Shanghai office. Mediatrade acted as the designer in collaboration with Akukon.

In 2023, construction began on the neighboring lot of Wood City, with noise and vibration disrupting the studio’s operations. Mediatrade designed and implemented a temporary studio in Ruoholahti using Wood City’s technology, which operated until the end of the year. In February 2024, operations moved back to the Wood City Film Studio.

Audio Studios

An immersive audio experience is as vital to a game as its visuals. In 2022, as Supercell’s staff expanded, new music composition studios were needed. Mediatrade designed and implemented two composition studios at Wood City in collaboration with Akukon and Audico.

The composers creating game music use a wide variety of DAW and other software tools. The audio studios are equipped for Dolby Atmos productions and include various controllers and interfaces in addition to audio software. For voice-over production, there are separate acoustically treated recording booths. High-quality microphones suited to speech production were also acquired.

Today

In 2025, Mediatrade continues as Supercell’s regular and ongoing service partner. Reflecting the value of continuity, all Mediatrade team members who began in the maintenance team in 2017 are still part of the now-expanded client team. We ensure that our client can focus on the work that matters most to them.

In Conclusion

It’s important to highlight that none of the projects realized during our collaboration would have succeeded without teamwork. The foundation of this has been close communication with the client’s representatives. We are deeply grateful to Supercell for their visionary approach and commitment to quality, as this has helped Mediatrade grow in the right direction as a company.

Regarding the execution, we would like to thank the following individuals and partners for their expertise and collegiality.

• Jonathan Maxwell
• Toni Poikonen
• Akukon
• Audico
• Autoscript
• On It films
• Canon
• Cartoni
• Creamsource
• DoP Choice
• Egripment
• Fujinon
• Lawo
• Litepanels
• Red Digital Cinema
• Ross Video
• Sigma
• Teradek

Contact Information

Mikko Saarinen, Mediatrade

Markus Haikonen, Supercell

Ryan Lighton, Supercell