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

This feature is part of our Türkiye region report, which you can download for free here.

The Turkish video games market is one of the most exciting in the world. It’s dominated the conversation around mobile, in particular hybridcasual and puzzle titles, for some time now and has been supported by its government in becoming a global superpower. 

Broadly speaking, the Turkish market is healthy. Or, to quote Akin Babayigit, the managing director of Arcadia Gaming Partners, it is “undoubtedly the capital of the world as far as mobile games are concerned”. 

“There is special know-how around casual games, very deep expertise in user acquisition, and performance marketing,” he continues. “This is combined with an insane work ethic that I have not seen in any other country around the world. 

“Putting all these together, in a very competitive red-ocean category such as mobile games, we see the Turkish developers winning. Every time someone declares that it’s too late or too crowded in mobile games, a new Turkish developer emerges.”

For Bugra Koc, the general manager of Zynga Türkiye’s Casual Cards studio, the country’s games market has now entered a “truly exciting era” marked by “consolidation and maturation”. 

“We’ve moved beyond the days of reckless hypercasual experimentation and today our scene is buzzing with elite operational efficiency and advanced LTV modelling, all buoyed by data-driven product management,” he says. “We’re no longer just a regional ‘talent pool’ – we’ve blossomed into a sophisticated global powerhouse.

“In fact, Istanbul has achieved an impressive pace and dynamism that can easily compete with cities like London and San Francisco in mobile game execution. Our studios are not just developing games, they are mastering the art of complex live operations and user acquisition systems like never before.

“Every step is meticulously tracked through metrics like return on ad spend and early retention rates, ensuring we are at the forefront of this exhilarating industry.”

One boon to the local industry is how Türkiye’s success stories have given back and supported the sector. Tuğbek Ölek, the head of trade body TOGED’s advisory board, points to funds like Laton Games and e2vc, partly backed by founders exiting companies after 2018. This has resulted in a “self-sustaining ecosystem”.

“We have our own VC funds, one of the strongest talent pipelines in the world, and our own repeatable playbook for building studios, at least for mobile,” says Ölek. “Instead of depending on global capital, funds like e2vc and Laton drive the growth now. We’re also not seeing the studio closures and mass layoffs the global industry is going through.” 

Koc adds: “We’re truly benefiting from secondary and tertiary reinvestment cycles. The veterans from the initial wave of major exits, like Peak and Gram, are stepping up to launch their third or fourth ventures or even manage local micro-VCs. This means early-stage teams are receiving not only financial backing, but also invaluable insights and knowledge to navigate the complexities of global distribution in a post-privacy world.”

Social mobility

Looking at opportunities within Türkiye, the “strongest” is “still mobile”. Onlookers need only see established studios like Dream Games, Peak, Rollic and Gram – with the latter trio acquired by Zynga for billions of dollars combined. Or you can look at the new wave of developers like Grand Games and Loom Games, to name just a couple.

Loom saw a rapid rise thanks to its hit game Pixel Flow! – which attracted Scopely to acquire a majority stake in the studio which valued the company in excess of $1 billion

“We’ll keep seeing strong mobile startups come out of Türkiye because the fundamentals are here,” Olek says.

“We have deep know-how in user acquisition, quick and effective development funnels, and thousands of new people joining the industry every year. But the real driving force is the alumni culture. Every few years a new generation of alumni spins out of the previous generation’s successful studios and builds their own. That cycle has repeated reliably enough that I’d count on it continuing.” 

More specifically, on mobile, Zynga’s Koc says that the “most thrilling opportunity” is Türkiye’s ability to scale the hybridcasual model “effectively”. 

“By blending the cost efficiency of simple hypercasual hooks with the rich, intricate monetisation strategies of traditional in-app purchases, we can tap into significant global margins – and that’s just the beginning,” he says. 

Though mobile dominates the market now, and likely will for some time to come, Olek also says there is a huge opportunity on the PC side of things. There are legacy studios like TaleWorlds, which made the Mount & Blade series, as well as newer developers like Curve Animation and Nokta, which have made Liar’s Bar and Supermarket Simulator, respectively. 

Olek also says that there is a “bigger” potential for growth on Steam. He argues the local startups are “hungry” and can build hits with “very small teams”.

“They have a realistic sense of what they can achieve and what actually drives commercial success,” he says. “Just as hypercasual carried mobile studios to maturity, I expect party and simulation games to carry a lot of PC studios the same way. The open question is diversification: will the PC side broaden its range, or will it get stuck in two genres the way mobile got stuck in puzzle? We don’t know yet and that’s the thing worth watching.”

The Turkish market is also buoyed by an exceptional level of talent, according to Babayigit, and a tremendously supportive ecosystem. “The talent density here is higher than in any other country I know in the world,” he says. 

“There is an incredible amount of funding opportunities available to Turkish developers right now, equity as well as UA financing, and the government is very supportive of Turkish companies.”

Koc adds: “Our local development teams are lean and incredibly efficient. A 20-person team in Istanbul can achieve remarkable success and this level of capital efficiency is truly something special.” 

A need for diversification

Much of the Turkish games industry is focused on mobile, particularly puzzle games. So far, this has been incredibly lucrative; it’s made founders rich and put Türkiye firmly on the global stage. But Olek says this leaves the local market open to problems. 

“We have all our eggs in a few baskets,” he says. “Puzzle in mobile, simulation and party games on Steam. If those genres cool down, it could tip the industry into recession. We’ve seen this before, when hypercasual studios got hit hard by Apple’s IDFA change.” 

Koc adds: “Despite our successes, we do face some challenges, including the heavy concentration within the puzzle and casual matching categories. This creates a dependence on a specific player behaviour framework. If global trends or store algorithms shift away from these popular loops, our industry might face some risks.” 

And on the subject of mobile, the Turkish industry has faced issues due to changes in privacy legislation that have made user acquisition more challenging and therefore more expensive. 

“As we look across the landscape in 2026, scaling a game globally requires substantial investment in user acquisition,” Koc says.

“The shifts in privacy frameworks have altered traditional targeting methods, making it harder for new games to break into the top charts without significant early investment. If a mid-sized studio can’t achieve rapid scale, it could exhaust its initial capital while searching for a profitable audience. That’s a challenge we need to navigate with ingenuity.” 

Olek also points to the government support that the Turkish industry has received, saying that any changes at that level could be devastating to the sector.

“Our studios are largely tax exempt and the incentives are strong and well designed,” Olek continues. “That support matters enormously, both for generating success and for keeping studios in Türkiye. If we lose it, things get difficult fast.” 

On the subject of government support, Olek says that while the Turkish government’s support has been “the best in the world”, he worries that due to the rapid growth the country’s video games industry has seen, this support now “falls short, even though the structure is right”. 

“In recent years, the marketing incentive we can get per title has actually gotten smaller. And we need more funding for early-stage development,” he says. “But this is a matter of raising the numbers on a spreadsheet, not inventing new ways to support developers. The framework already works. It just needs to keep pace with the size of the industry it’s backing.” 

Koc also calls out the Turkish Ministry of Trade’s subsidies for global marketing, UA and platform fees, arguing they are a “strong safety net for studio development”. But he also says there needs to be a “streamlined global talent pipeline”. 

“While local universities are doing a fantastic job of creating strong game design and development programs, we are facing a shortfall of senior-level international talent,” he says. 

“We could greatly benefit from world-class game economists, narrative designers and experienced live ops directors who have successfully managed longstanding legacy franchises. I’d love to see the government implement hassle-free, expedited visa programs specifically aimed at attracting top talent in the tech and games sectors, making it easier for global professionals to make Istanbul their new home.”

Healthy or unhealthy competition?

As with the rest of the world, one big tech trend that could disrupt the industry is AI. Olek describes the new technology as a “big unknown”, at least in the short-term. “Unlike some other countries, Turkish developers adopt and embrace it quickly,” he says. “I don’t yet know whether that becomes a new competitive advantage for us or creates fresh challenges along the way. Either way, we’ll be early to it.” 

Part of the reason the Turkish games industry has become as successful as it has is a great deal of competitiveness. This, Babayigit argues, is one of the biggest challenges facing the sector. 

“The insane competitiveness that makes these companies so great can also sometimes be the Achilles heel,” he says. “There is zero cooperation, knowledge sharing, and instead everyone is always trying to screw each other.”

Koc echoes this point, admittedly from a different angle, something he describes as the “copycat horizon”.

“Thanks to our closely-knit ecosystem, successful product features can often be replicated incredibly quickly,” he argues. “This can lead to competition among local studios vying for the same target audiences. We need to find innovative ways to stand out in this exciting yet competitive landscape.”

Even though there is the potential for risk in the Turkish games scene, the growth of the sector has been phenomenal. But Olek wants to dream even bigger. 

“Our target has always been, and is still, reaching $10 billion in revenue,” he says. “Ten years ago, people laughed at us for saying it. Today, we’ve already passed a third of the way there and we did it when global gaming wasn’t in great shape. If we can diversify our production and the industry starts growing strongly again, we can get much closer to that target within five years.”

He continues: “Most of all, in five years, I hope people are talking about our PC and console developers, not just our mobile studios. That’s the shift I want to see: Türkiye is known for building across the board, not famous for one part of the market.”

Koc agrees and adds: “I am filled with hope and excitement about the Turkish market’s successful diversification of its platform and genre offerings. While we currently excel in mobile casual games, I envision our studios utilising their strong mobile cash reserves to expand into more immersive experiences on mobile, as well as into cross-platform midcore titles, simulation games and more complex tactical genres on PC and console.”

He continues, saying that he believes that there will be less interest in founders selling to foreign companies, but rather the Turkish industry looking after its own.

“I believe we will see fewer early exits in the future,” Koc says. “Instead of selling out to global gaming giants during the Series B or C stages, we are likely to witness the emergence of self-sustaining, multi-billion-dollar independent Turkish publishers that remain rooted in Istanbul and actively attract international talent. The future looks promising.”

Babayigit, meanwhile, is equally optimistic about Türkiye’s future, believing that the “calibre” of people joining the industry right now is “incredible”.

“There will be great companies that are starting in Türkiye, I have no doubt,” he concludes.