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“Why is it called Clash of Clans when the clans don’t clash?”

An astute question, thought the game team as they pondered what would become Clash’s most significant update. Players were eager to wage war since the game was in its infancy. The team presumed that they would one day release Clan Wars, but not before months of planning, quite a few hours of lost sleep and, subsequently, many liters of caffeine.

So why wasn’t Clan Wars part of the original concept? The answer is probably less complex than one might imagine: the team simply didn’t know how they wanted it to work. It was a matter of timing really. Clash was very young then, requiring an aging process to grow roots in the community. Gauging player expectation and interest is an utmost priority, and ignoring that by way of lazy implementation would betray the team’s values. “We knew we wanted to do something really crazy and take it to the next level”, says senior game developer Andreas. “Really crazy” isn’t done in an afternoon anyway. This was going to take time.

As senior server engineer Jonas puts it: “We could have done something really quick and really simple months earlier, but we didn’t want the players to say ‘Ok, we’re bored, what’s next?’ after a week.” Foresight took precedence. Real time strategy games, already a hallmark of mobile gaming, sought to capitalize on player desire for Clan Wars, with other companies creating their own wily takes on the concept. However undeterred, the Clash team chose to move slowly, making sure both they and the community were ready before dropping such a game-changing feature.

What followed carried the team from November 2013, all the way to April 2014. It was five straight months of rigorous development.