Relentless, results-driven hard work, highly competitive founders and financial backing from both the government and local investors have made Türkiye mobile gaming’s hottest startup scene.
This will not come as a surprise to any mobilegamer.biz reader; indeed, somehow copying what Türkiye is doing has come up in conversation at every single one of our Off The Record events this year.
Can other markets realistically compete with Türkiye’s mix of extremely hard-working, lower-cost workers, huge government incentives and a gang of investors committed to backing local talent? Probably not, right now at least.
Of course, Zynga’s M&A team helped plenty. Those landmark deals for Peak ($1.8bn) and Rollic ($180m+) in 2020 helped accelerate the scene dramatically, and from there we’ve seen Dream Games, Good Job, Grand, Spyke, Ruby and many others emerge, attract huge investment – and flourish.
The success of the ecosystem has spawned its own trade show, Mobidictum, and it was there last month we got more of a flavour of why Istanbul’s big moment is a little different to Helsinki’s heyday as mobile gaming’s heartbeat.
InvestGame’s Anton Gorodetsky, speaking on a panel at Mobidictum, summed it up: “Istanbul is the capital of mobile gaming. The agility and the speed that Turkish scene is creating games is amazing…and I think we all know from which city you guys took the crown from. Istanbul outpaced Helsinki a couple of years ago.”
We already reported back on key local investor Akın Babayiğit’s views on the market from that event – he sees all of the growth coming from studios in China, Türkiye and Vietnam. But Babayiğit did also offer a note of caution, too, suggesting that Turkish ecosystem could overheat if too many investors put their money into the same sorts of match 3 and hybridcasual studios.
That said, the strengths of game-makers in the region are undeniable. “Turkish DNA right now is we’re very good on execution where maybe – other than Rollic – we’re not very good on ideation,” said Babayiğit. “We just take what works, and then we just brute force it, make it better.”
He later added: “We’re also very good at quick-fire iteration, not being very ‘by the book’, finding quick hacks along the way.”
Alongside local investors like Babayiğit’s VC firm Arcadia and Laton Ventures, both of which seem laser-focused on investing in Turkish-owned and run studios, the nation’s proactive government has also been a huge help.
Mobidictum founder Batuhan Avucan says government cashback schemes have “reduced financial risk and encouraged developers to experiment and scale.”
“Studios receive a percentage of their marketing spend back after meeting certain criteria, which helps extend their runway and reinvest,” Avucan explains. “These incentives were particularly powerful for performance-driven mobile teams that could scale quickly and operate with tight budgets.”
Companies based within a government-designated Technology Development Zone or Teknoparks are also exempt from corporation tax. Equipment is also VAT and customs duty exempt, and there’s income tax relief for employees working on R&D projects and further state support for personnel costs for up to five years.
These are the solid foundations on which the Istanbul scene is built. But what’s next? Arguably the ecosystem’s biggest investor, Akin Babayiğit, said at Mobidictum that he wants up-and-coming Turkish talent to actually look beyond gaming.
“A lot of people that graduate from these top schools in Turkey, they go to games companies, and that’s kind of a waste, in my opinion, right? Why not go to AI?” he said.
“Why did you not start an AI company? Because you see your friends making money with games companies, and you want to make money too,” he added. “People see that and they want to make money, but that’s not how as a country we will win.”
