Clash of Clans maintains its popularity

If you are still living in 2022 and have never heard of the game Clash of Clans, you must have been living under a rock for almost a decade. Clash of Clans was released on IOS devices on Aug. 2, 2012, and on android devices shortly after. With just under two million daily players and 500 million downloads, Clash of Clans has been seen as one of the most popular mobile games since its release.

For anyone who is not familiar with Clash of Clans, here are some basics. Clash of Clans is a strategy game consisting of a home defense base. Defenses can include cannons, walls, archer towers, etc. and can be upgraded with loot in forms of either gold, elixir or dark elixir. Upgrading your defenses is important, as better upgraded defenses makes it harder for opponents to attack your base and steal your loot.

In order to obtain the loot needed to upgrade your defenses, you must attack other players’ bases. To do this you must train an army which can also be upgraded using loot. Once you have a trained army, you can attack other players’ bases to steal their loot using your army.

The process then repeats. Using stolen loot, you upgrade your bases defenses and army to attack stronger player bases with more loot to then upgrade your base once again.

The game is not all attacking and upgrading however. Hence the word “Clans” in Clash of Clans, you are able to join clans consisting of up to 50 players including yourself to help in battles. Clan members can help by donating army troops to their friends so they can use them in battle or to help defend their base. “Currently I am in a clan called HackJarlow with some other Milford students such as Nick Briggs and Logan McLaughlin,” said avid Clash of Clans player and Milford senior Jack Hannert.  “I enjoy helping out the boys with donations every once in a while.”

Supercell, the creator of Clash of Clans, also owns other popular games including Clash Royale, Boom Beach, Hay Day and a few others. Their game ownership in 2021 brought in an astounding 2.24 billion USD.

Supercell, in the players minds, does a good job running the game, as they are always implementing new features to the game with plentiful updates. Clash of Clans when first released back in 2012 was not the same game as seen today in 2022. They have added features such as clan wars where clans members of one clan attacks another clan for various rewards, the builder base where players can attack and upgrade on a separate night themed base that is separate from your main home base and clan games, where clan members help each other out completing tasks to unlock special in-game items.

To some, Clash of Clans can seem very addicting, but it’s easy to see why and it’s helped the game gain so much popularity. “I’ve been playing Clash of Clans since 6th grade and haven’t really taken too long of a break from it since,” said Milford senior and veteran player Logan McLaughlin. “There’s something about the constant thought of upgrading your base to get better and better.”

Although games like Pokémon Go had their phase of popularity and then fizzled out overtime, the players of Clash of Clans don’t see the game going anywhere. With updates and almost 10 years of a consistent player base, Clash of Clans has proven to not just be a trend. “It has been a really good stress reliever because it helps me focus on something that’s really fun,” said Milford senior Luke McIntyre. Time is the only thing that can tell if the game will last, but most likely Clash of Clans is here to stay and players will always be looking forward to that next update.