Empires & Puzzles
Empires & Puzzles comes from Small Giant Games, which Gregory Milken invested in.
Categories

After Zynga deal, Empires & Puzzles maker is an inspiration for Finnish game industry

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 13 min

Finland has more to contribute to the world of mobile gaming than Clash Royale and Angry Birds. We saw that last year when Zynga acquired Small Giant Games for at least $560 million (price tag for 80%).

I met Timo Soininen, CEO of Helsinki-based Small Giant Games, last week at the Slush tech event, which drew at least 25,000 people to Helsinki. He started the company in 2013 and had barely a dozen people to work on the first version of Empires & Puzzles, which debuted in the spring of 2017. The game grew so quickly that Zynga was lucky to snag Small Giant Games on its way up.

Unlock premium content and VIP community perks with GB M A X!
Join now to enjoy our free and premium membership perks.
Join Now
Already a member? Sign in
Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.