Senior Customer Lead

Small Giant Games is a Helsinki-based developer and publisher of mobile games, primarily focused on creating and operating free-to-play titles for iOS and Android devices. Established as an independent studio and later integrated into a larger mobile-games portfolio, the company is best known for developing Empires & Puzzles, a commercially successful puzzle-RPG that combines match-3 mechanics with base building and role-playing elements. Small Giant’s core business activities center on game design and development, live operations (live-ops) to continuously update and monetize live titles, user acquisition and marketing, data-driven product optimization, and community management for a global player base. Company overview and core activities Small Giant Games functions as a product-led game studio. Its primary activity is designing, developing and operating mobile games within the competitive free-to-play market. The studio follows a live-ops model: after launching a title, it continuously iterates through content updates, timed events, balance adjustments, and feature additions to retain players and drive monetization. This lifecycle approach includes cross-disciplinary teams covering creative design, engineering, art and animation, quality assurance, backend and infrastructure, data science and analytics, user acquisition, and community and customer support. Product focus and portfolio Small Giant’s flagship product, Empires & Puzzles, is a hybrid mobile game that blends match-3 puzzle gameplay with collectible hero progression, base-building elements, and player-versus-player (PvP) and alliance systems. The title emphasizes ongoing content releases, seasonal events, limited-time challenges, and social gameplay through alliances or guilds. Empires & Puzzles drives the studio’s public profile and revenue streams through in-app purchases for virtual currency, hero summons, and progression boosts. In addition to its flagship, the studio has researched and prototyped new game ideas and supported ancillary features and live events that keep its player communities engaged and paying. Monetization, distribution and technology The company operates on the widely adopted free-to-play monetization model: the base game is distributed for free via major mobile storefronts (Apple App Store and Google Play), while revenues primarily come from in-app purchases and, where appropriate, merchandising or partnerships. Small Giant emphasizes player retention, lifetime value (LTV) optimization, and user acquisition cost (UAC) management through targeted marketing campaigns and analytics. From a technology standpoint, the studio develops native mobile clients and backend services to support real-time game state, player profiles, in-game economies, and event scheduling. The engineering organization typically manages server infrastructure, analytics pipelines, A/B testing frameworks, and tooling that supports rapid feature deployment and rollbacks. Product development and live-ops A defining characteristic of Small Giant’s operating model is its investment in live-ops. Live-ops at the studio includes designing daily and weekly content, limited-time events, special promotions, and seasonal updates. These activities are informed by player behavior analytics, cohort analysis, and iterative design experiments. Small Giant’s product teams run controlled experiments to test pricing, reward structures, difficulty scaling, and event mechanics, using the resulting data to guide both short-term event design and long-term product roadmaps. Community feedback through in-game channels, social media, and forum interactions also plays a role in shaping content and addressing player concerns. Organization, partnerships and corporate events Small Giant has operated both as an independent studio and as part of a larger corporate group following an acquisition by an industry peer; since that acquisition the studio has continued to operate its live products while leveraging parent-company resources for distribution, marketing scale, and additional product expertise. This integration enabled Small Giant to expand global marketing campaigns and user-acquisition efforts while retaining its internal studio culture for creative development and live-ops execution. The studio also collaborates with external partners for certain technical services, analytics, and localized marketing where appropriate. Player community and support A significant portion of Small Giant’s operations is dedicated to community engagement and customer support. The company runs community channels, in-game messaging and help desks to assist players, collect feedback, and foster social structures such as alliances or guilds. Community teams coordinate with game designers and product managers to prioritize bug fixes, balance changes, and feature requests, and they also manage external communication around major updates and event schedules. Reputation and market position In the competitive mobile-gaming market, Small Giant has established a reputation as a studio capable of launching and sustaining a high-revenue free-to-play franchise through effective live-ops and a blend of puzzle and RPG mechanics. Its commercial success and operations approach have made it an example of a mid-sized studio that can scale a single title into a long-running franchise through constant iteration, community engagement, and data-informed decisions. Current status and outlook As a developer focused on live services, Small Giant continues to prioritize ongoing content delivery, monetization balance, and player retention strategies for its live titles while exploring new projects and game concepts. The studio’s combination of product-focused development, data-driven optimization, and live-ops expertise positions it to maintain and grow its audience in mobile gaming’s rapidly evolving marketplace.