Nikoli's president, Yoshinao Anpuku, poses for a photo at Nikoli headquarters in Tokyo on March 19, 2025. LinkedIn worked with Nikoli and Sudoku champion Thomas Snyder to launch its Mini Sudoku game.
LinkedIn on Tuesday released a new game for the professional social networking app's 1.2 billion users. It's a miniature version of Sudoku, an old game with a rich history.
The new Mini Sudoku is LinkedIn's sixth game. It's scaled down from the traditional 9-by-9 grid and meant to be completed in two or three minutes.
"We don't want to have a puzzle on LinkedIn that takes 20 minutes to solve, right?" said Lakshman Somasundaram, a senior director of product at the Microsoft subsidiary, in an interview with CNBC. "We're not games for games' sake."
The introduction has the potential to strike a nostalgic chord and spark competition with colleagues, friends and family members for how fast the puzzle can be solved.
As with other puzzles in the app, Mini Sudoku gets harder as the days progress through the week.
LinkedIn added games last year to increase the fun and give users something new to talk about with one another.
Millions of people play LinkedIn's games every day, a spokesperson said. The most popular time is 7 a.m. ET, and Gen Z is the top demographic. Of those who play today, 86% will return tomorrow, and 82% will be playing next week, the spokesperson said.
Launched in 2003 and acquired by Microsoft for $27 billion in 2016, LinkedIn remains in growth mode. Revenue increased about 9% to $4.6 billion in the latest quarter and membership reached 1.2 billion. Meta 's social networks are more popular, with a combined 3.5 billion daily users and 22% revenue growth.
Unlike Meta , LinkedIn gives recruiters tools for finding candidates, and job seekers can apply for openings listed on the site. LinkedIn also now promotes a personalized feed of videos, similar to Google's YouTube, TikTok and Meta's own Facebook and Instagram.