Turkey’s Gram Games bet everything on the success of puzzle game 1010!

The Turkish game studio Gram Games was down to its last $25,000 when it created 1010!, a puzzle game that resembles Tetris but builds on its gameplay. When the game debuted in September, it became a hit, and its success so far has saved Gram Games. The title has been downloaded more than 25 million times, and it has 3.5 million daily active users.

The title shows that the rags-to-riches business fairy tale is still alive in mobile games. In Gram Games’ case, all it took was taking an old nostalgic title and tweaking it in a way that enabled a new kind of gameplay. Nine months later, the company is preparing to launch a multiplayer version of the game.

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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.