Empires & Puzzles has more than 10 million downloads.
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Zynga will buy 80% of Empires & Puzzles maker Small Giant Games for $560 million

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 3 min

Zynga has agreed to acquire the Helsinki-based mobile game maker Small Giant Games, the creator of the hit title Empires & Puzzles. Zynga will pay $560 million in cash and stock for 80 percent of the company, and the rest will come later.

It’s the biggest deal since Zynga acquired CSR Racing maker NaturalMotion for $527 million in 2014. And it reflects the strategy of CEO Frank Gibeau to grow during an age of mobile gaming consolidation through both the creation of new games and acquisitions.

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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.