State of Play: Inside Türkiye’s flourishing and fast-moving games industry

Stay Informed

Get Industry News In Your Inbox…

Sign Up Today

This characteristic is a part of our Türkiye area report, printed in affiliation with Xsolla, which you’ll be able to download for free here.

The Turkish video video games market is among the most enjoyable on the earth. It’s dominated the dialog round cell, particularly hybridcasual and puzzle titles, for a while now and has been supported by its authorities in turning into a worldwide superpower. 

Broadly talking, the Turkish market is wholesome. Or, to cite Akin Babayigit, the managing director of Arcadia Gaming Partners, it’s “undoubtedly the capital of the world so far as cell video games are involved”. 

“There’s particular know-how round informal video games, very deep experience in person acquisition, and efficiency advertising and marketing,” he continues. “That is mixed with an insane work ethic that I’ve not seen in every other nation around the globe. 

“Placing all these collectively, in a really aggressive red-ocean class equivalent to cell video games, we see the Turkish builders successful. Each time somebody declares that it’s too late or too crowded in cell video games, a brand new Turkish developer emerges.”

For Bugra Koc, the final supervisor of Zynga Türkiye’s Informal Playing cards studio, the nation’s video games market has now entered a “really thrilling period” marked by “consolidation and maturation”. 

“We’ve moved past the times of reckless hypercasual experimentation and at the moment our scene is buzzing with elite operational effectivity and superior LTV modelling, all buoyed by data-driven product administration,” he says. “We’re now not only a regional ‘expertise pool’ – we’ve blossomed into a classy world powerhouse.

“Actually, Istanbul has achieved a powerful tempo and dynamism that may simply compete with cities like London and San Francisco in cell recreation execution. Our studios are usually not simply creating video games, they’re mastering the artwork of complicated reside operations and person acquisition methods like by no means earlier than.

“Each step is meticulously tracked via metrics like return on advert spend and early retention charges, guaranteeing we’re on the forefront of this exhilarating business.”

One boon to the native business is how Türkiye’s success tales have given again and supported the sector. Tuğbek Ölek, the top of commerce physique TOGED’s advisory board, factors to funds like Laton Video games and e2vc, partly backed by founders exiting firms after 2018. This has resulted in a “self-sustaining ecosystem”.

“We have now our personal VC funds, one of many strongest expertise pipelines on the earth, and our personal repeatable playbook for constructing studios, no less than for cell,” says Ölek. “As an alternative of relying on world capital, funds like e2vc and Laton drive the expansion now. We’re additionally not seeing the studio closures and mass layoffs the worldwide business goes via.” 

Koc provides: “We’re really benefiting from secondary and tertiary reinvestment cycles. The veterans from the preliminary wave of main exits, like Peak and Gram, are stepping as much as launch their third or fourth ventures and even handle native micro-VCs. This implies early-stage groups are receiving not solely monetary backing, but in addition invaluable insights and data to navigate the complexities of worldwide distribution in a post-privacy world.”

Social mobility

Taking a look at alternatives inside Türkiye, the “strongest” is “nonetheless cell”. Onlookers want solely see established studios like Dream Video games, Peak, Rollic and Gram – with the latter trio acquired by Zynga for billions of {dollars} mixed. Or you may have a look at the brand new wave of builders like Grand Video games and Loom Video games, to call only a couple.

Loom noticed a fast rise because of its hit recreation Pixel Move! – which attracted Scopely to accumulate a majority stake within the studio which valued the firm in extra of $1 billion

“We’ll maintain seeing robust cell startups come out of Türkiye as a result of the basics are right here,” Olek says.

“We have now deep know-how in person acquisition, fast and efficient growth funnels, and hundreds of latest individuals becoming a member of the business yearly. However the actual driving pressure is the alumni tradition. Each few years a brand new era of alumni spins out of the earlier era’s profitable studios and builds their very own. That cycle has repeated reliably sufficient that I’d depend on it persevering with.” 

Extra particularly, on cell, Zynga’s Koc says that the “most thrilling alternative” is Türkiye’s potential to scale the hybridcasual mannequin “successfully”. 

“By mixing the fee effectivity of easy hypercasual hooks with the wealthy, intricate monetisation methods of conventional in-app purchases, we will faucet into important world margins – and that’s just the start,” he says. 

Although cell dominates the market now, and certain will for a while to come back, Olek additionally says there’s a big alternative on the PC aspect of issues. There are legacy studios like TaleWorlds, which made the Mount & Blade collection, in addition to newer builders like Curve Animation and Nokta, which have made Liar’s Bar and Grocery store Simulator, respectively. 

Olek additionally says that there’s a “greater” potential for progress on Steam. He argues the native startups are “hungry” and might construct hits with “very small groups”.

“They’ve a practical sense of what they’ll obtain and what really drives business success,” he says. “Simply as hypercasual carried cell studios to maturity, I count on get together and simulation video games to hold numerous PC studios the identical manner. The open query is diversification: will the PC aspect broaden its vary, or will it get caught in two genres the best way cell acquired caught in puzzle? We don’t know but and that’s the factor value watching.”

The Turkish market can be buoyed by an distinctive degree of expertise, in keeping with Babayigit, and a tremendously supportive ecosystem. “The expertise density right here is greater than in every other nation I do know on the earth,” he says. 

“There’s an unbelievable quantity of funding alternatives out there to Turkish builders proper now, fairness in addition to UA financing, and the federal government may be very supportive of Turkish firms.”

Koc provides: “Our native growth groups are lean and extremely environment friendly. A 20-person workforce in Istanbul can obtain outstanding success and this degree of capital effectivity is actually one thing particular.” 

A necessity for diversification

A lot of the Turkish video games business is targeted on cell, significantly puzzle video games. Thus far, this has been extremely profitable; it’s made founders wealthy and put Türkiye firmly on the worldwide stage. However Olek says this leaves the native market open to issues. 

“We have now all our eggs in a number of baskets,” he says. “Puzzle in cell, simulation and get together video games on Steam. If these genres calm down, it may tip the business into recession. We’ve seen this earlier than, when hypercasual studios acquired hit exhausting by Apple’s IDFA change.” 

Koc provides: “Regardless of our successes, we do face some challenges, together with the heavy focus inside the puzzle and informal matching classes. This creates a dependence on a selected participant behaviour framework. If world developments or retailer algorithms shift away from these standard loops, our business may face some dangers.” 

And as regards to cell, the Turkish business has confronted points resulting from adjustments in privateness laws which have made person acquisition tougher and subsequently costlier. 

“As we glance throughout the panorama in 2026, scaling a recreation globally requires substantial funding in person acquisition,” Koc says.

“The shifts in privateness frameworks have altered conventional focusing on strategies, making it tougher for brand new video games to interrupt into the highest charts with out important early funding. If a mid-sized studio can’t obtain fast scale, it may exhaust its preliminary capital whereas trying to find a worthwhile viewers. That’s a problem we have to navigate with ingenuity.” 

Olek additionally factors to the federal government help that the Turkish business has acquired, saying that any adjustments at that degree could possibly be devastating to the sector.

“Our studios are largely tax exempt and the incentives are robust and properly designed,” Olek continues. “That help issues enormously, each for producing success and for maintaining studios in Türkiye. If we lose it, issues get troublesome quick.” 

With reference to authorities help, Olek says that whereas the Turkish authorities’s help has been “the very best on the earth”, he worries that because of the fast progress the nation’s video video games business has seen, this help now “falls quick, despite the fact that the construction is true”. 

“In recent times, the advertising and marketing incentive we will get per title has really shrunk. And we want extra funding for early-stage growth,” he says. “However this can be a matter of elevating the numbers on a spreadsheet, not inventing new methods to help builders. The framework already works. It simply must maintain tempo with the dimensions of the business it’s backing.” 

Koc additionally calls out the Turkish Ministry of Commerce’s subsidies for world advertising and marketing, UA and platform charges, arguing they’re a “robust security internet for studio growth”. However he additionally says there must be a “streamlined world expertise pipeline”. 

“Whereas native universities are doing a improbable job of making robust recreation design and growth applications, we face a shortfall of senior-level worldwide expertise,” he says. 

“We may drastically profit from world-class recreation economists, narrative designers and skilled reside ops administrators who’ve efficiently managed longstanding legacy franchises. I’d like to see the federal government implement hassle-free, expedited visa applications particularly aimed toward attracting high expertise within the tech and video games sectors, making it simpler for world professionals to make Istanbul their new house.”

Wholesome or unhealthy competitors?

As with the remainder of the world, one large tech pattern that might disrupt the business is AI. Olek describes the brand new expertise as a “large unknown”, no less than within the short-term. “In contrast to another nations, Turkish builders undertake and embrace it shortly,” he says. “I don’t but know whether or not that turns into a brand new aggressive benefit for us or creates contemporary challenges alongside the best way. Both manner, we’ll be early to it.” 

A part of the explanation the Turkish video games business has develop into as profitable because it has is quite a lot of competitiveness. This, Babayigit argues, is among the largest challenges dealing with the sector. 

“The insane competitiveness that makes these firms so nice may also typically be the Achilles heel,” he says. “There’s zero cooperation, data sharing, and as an alternative everyone seems to be all the time attempting to screw one another.”

Koc echoes this level, admittedly from a special angle, one thing he describes because the “copycat horizon”.

“Due to our closely-knit ecosystem, profitable product options can usually be replicated extremely shortly,” he argues. “This may result in competitors amongst native studios vying for a similar goal audiences. We have to discover modern methods to face out on this thrilling but aggressive panorama.”

Although there may be the potential for danger within the Turkish video games scene, the expansion of the sector has been phenomenal. However Olek desires to dream even greater. 

“Our goal has all the time been, and continues to be, reaching $10 billion in income,” he says. “Ten years in the past, individuals laughed at us for saying it. Right now, we’ve already handed a 3rd of the best way there and we did it when world gaming wasn’t in nice form. If we will diversify our manufacturing and the business begins rising strongly once more, we will get a lot nearer to that focus on inside 5 years.”

He continues: “Most of all, in 5 years, I hope persons are speaking about our PC and console builders, not simply our cell studios. That’s the shift I need to see: Türkiye is understood for constructing throughout the board, not well-known for one a part of the market.”

Koc agrees and provides: “I’m crammed with hope and pleasure in regards to the Turkish market’s profitable diversification of its platform and style choices. Whereas we at present excel in cell informal video games, I envision our studios utilising their robust cell money reserves to develop into extra immersive experiences on cell, in addition to into cross-platform midcore titles, simulation video games and extra complicated tactical genres on PC and console.”

He continues, saying that he believes that there shall be much less curiosity in founders promoting to overseas firms, however quite the Turkish business taking care of its personal.

“I consider we are going to see fewer early exits sooner or later,” Koc says. “As an alternative of promoting out to world gaming giants through the Sequence B or C phases, we’re prone to witness the emergence of self-sustaining, multi-billion-dollar impartial Turkish publishers that stay rooted in Istanbul and actively appeal to worldwide expertise. The longer term seems promising.”

Babayigit, in the meantime, is equally optimistic about Türkiye’s future, believing that the “calibre” of individuals becoming a member of the business proper now’s “unbelievable”.

“There shall be nice firms which are beginning in Türkiye, I’ve little doubt,” he concludes.