The Top 30 Türkiye Game Makers of 2026

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• Market Match

Bold Games is one of the latest hot startups to emerge from Türkiye’s bustling games hub. In July, the studio revealed it had secured $6 million in investment.

The company plans to use the funds to grow its team and scale its debut sort puzzle mobile game Market Match. Between them, the developer’s co-founders have previously worked at studios including Bigger Games, Agave Games, Dream Games, ZeptoLab and Rollic.

Bold Games’ funding round was led by Arcadia Gaming Partners, Makers Fund and e2vc. It also included participation from JIMCO and several angel investors.

The studio is one of many exciting developers to emerge in Türkiye in recent years. As this list goes to show, there’s a solid mix of established companies and hot new startups looking to take on the giants. Given the track record, it’s tough to bet against them.

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• Slidey: Block Puzzle
• Paint Blast
• Leisure Up!

Best known for casual games Paint Blast and Slidey: Block Puzzle, Mavis Games is all about fun, simple gameplay. The studio was founded in 2018 and has released a range of titles in the eight years since, making a strong enough impression to earn attention from hybridcasual pro Habby.

The pair worked together on a range of games like Easy to Learn and the aforementioned Slidey: Block Puzzle over several years, ultimately leading Habby to make a $2m investment in the Turkish studio in 2025. The deal also added Habby CEO Stefan Wang to Mavis Games’ board of directors - furthering a partnership built on mutual trust and shared wins. Mavis set out to use the new funds to grow its team, accelerate production and marketing capabilities and scale its existing titles. Earlier this year, testing also began in select regions for a new Mavis puzzle game, Leisure Up.

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• Cluedo Chase
• Fiona’s Farm

Founded in 2020, Istanbul-based Ace Games is a notable name in Türkiye’s games hub. You’ll hear this a couple times in this list – the studio was formed by one of the ‘Peak mafia’, co-founder Hakan Bas.

Over the years, Ace Games has raised plenty of investment. It secured $7 million in its seed round, $25m from Playtika for a minority stake in the studio and a further $8m in 2023. More recently, the developer received further backing from the Türkiye Development Fund.

The company is best known for puzzle game Fiona’s Farm, which has generated an estimated $28m from IAPs, according to AppMagic estimates. That title has since fallen away from those highs, with Ace Games on the hunt for its next hit. The studio currently has Cluedo Chase in soft launch – can this well established studio find a new success story?

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• Cinema Simulator 2025
• Business Simulator 2026
• Rock Star Life Simulator

Back in February, PC and mobile games developer Hogo Games secured new investment to expand its team and production pipeline, giving it a $10 million valuation.

Its backers are other companies on this very list. Its latest round was led by Nokta Games, while the studio has also previously attracted a $5m funding round last year led by Red Axe Games.

Hogo Games, which as of February employed a 13-person team, specialises in the simulation category, with its portfolio featuring titles such as Cinema Simulator 2025, Business Simulator 2026 and Rock Star Life Simulator. As of its latest investment, the company was said to be developing five PC titles and actively working to expand its mobile offerings. Hogo Games is proof – among a few on this list – that Türkiye doesn’t just attract investment for its vibrant mobile scene.

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• Car For Sale Simulator 2023
• Banker Simulator
• Gym Simulator 24
• Factory Planner
• Dead Engine

While Türkiye has earned a reputation as a star of the mobile games market, it has specialists in the PC simulation gaming space, too. One of those studios is Red Axe Games, behind titles Car For Sale Simulator 2023, Banker Simulator and Gym Simulator.

This year, the studio has stepped further into the publishing realm with titles such as Dead Engine by Chocolate Dungeon Games and card-based simulation and strategy game Factory Planner by Lebleby Games. Coming soon is its own title, 3D top-down roguelite Grimstone Survivors.

Red Axe Games has expanded its business across platforms and genres. It has games on mobile, Car For Sale Simulator and Party.io, that have surpassed 10m and 20m downloads, respectively, while it’s leveraging its success for publishing and even investment in Hogo Games, also a featured studio on this list.

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• Kitchen Masters

Through reading our list of the Top 30 Türkiye Game Makers of 2026, you might find that a few studios are full of potential, but haven’t quite reached the point of their first hit.

Bigger Games is one of those studios – backed to the tune of $25 million last year in a Series A round led by Goodwater Capital, with participation from Arcadia Gaming Partners, Index Ventures, and Play Ventures. As part of the deal, Coddy Johnson (former Activision Blizzard president and now partner at Goodwater) joined the developer’s’ board of directors. And like other studios on this list, its CEO, Hakan Ulvan, was formerly at Peak.

Bigger Games has launched a few titles over the years and has its current hopes pinned on match-3 Kitchen Masters. Can it match Türkiye’s other top puzzle game studios to become another global player?

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• Match Squad
• Royal Smash!

In Türkiye’s games hub, where global investment trends don’t apply, Cypher Games is one of the hottest startups. The developer raised $30 million in a Series A round in late 2025 led by The Raine Group and Play Ventures. They joined other backers such as Discord CEO Humam Saknini, King founder Riccardo Zacconi, and Tripledot co-founder Akin Babayigit.

It followed on from a $10m raise in 2024, taking total funding to $40m. So why all the interest? The funds were targeted at supporting the launch of debut title Match Squad, a mix of match-3 mechanics, dice-based gameplay and city-building elements – as well as the development of a second game.

Cypher Games is a key studio to watch among the new wave of startups looking to prove that all that investment in the country’s games market will continue to produce hit new titles.

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• Bus Simulator: Ultimate
• Truck Simulator: Europe
• Truck Simulator: Ultimate

According to Zuuks Games’ own website, the mobile games developer has reached 95 million active users per month and 3.5m daily active users. Overall, its titles have been downloaded more than 850m times worldwide.

The company’s specialism, like a few other studios in Türkiye, is the simulation genre. Its top games include Truck Simulator: Europe at 260m+ and Truck Simulator: Ultimate at over 100m downloads.

The reach of Zuuks’ games is impressive and the developer continues to garner millions of downloads each month. In fact, the company recently claimed that Bus Simulator: Ultimate is the world’s most played simulation game with over 450 million downloads.

Its scale has also attracted partnerships with the likes of Mercedes-Benz, Ford, Michelin and DAF Trucks NV, helping ensure its years-old titles remain relevant and engaging for players after the true simulation experience.

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• Sort Express

Founded in 2024, Circle Games is one of Türkiye’s newer mobile studios, established by industry veterans from studios such as Gram Games, Dream Games and Good Job Games.

Shortly after its launch, the company secured $7.25m in seed funding from investors including Bitkraft Ventures and a16z Speedrun to accelerate the development of its casual puzzle portfolio.

The investment has gone toward the studio’s debut title, Sort Express, which soft-launched in August 2025 before its global expansion. AppMagic estimates put the puzzle game at around $5m in gross player spending, scaling significantly in 2026.

With its experienced founding team and significant early financial backing, Circle Games has entered one of Türkiye’s strongest genres, with an initial focus on scaling its debut title and continuing to build its presence in the casual mobile puzzle market.

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• Match Valley

TaleMonster was founded by former developers at Peak Games, adding yet another premier studio to Türkiye’s lineup. The company was founded just two years ago in 2024, and by May 2025 it had $7m backing it through a successful seed round.

Expanding the team and accelerating development on puzzle games were the core goals, and nine months later, Talemonster’s headcount had almost doubled from 17 to 32 staff. Peak Games veterans Eren Sarıçiçek, Berk Yaşar and Irem Sumer went on to raise a further $30m in January 2026, completing a Series A round focused on scaling debut title Match Valley. The game blends match-3 mechanics with tower defence elements, which the studio, and its backers, hope will prove a breakout formula.

And Talemonster isn’t limiting itself to one title either. A second game is also in development, expected to launch sometime this year.

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• Word Chain
• Jigsaw Block Sort
• Brainstorm Test: Tricky Puzzle
• Joust Battle: Medieval War
• Archer Knight: The Saviour

This Turkish studio is exploring puzzle and action genres – ranging from jigsaws to javelins. Tribom Games currently has five games on the market with over 10 million downloads between them, with its largest audience found in the US.

Word Chain leads the list: a puzzler and a brain teaser where one given word hints at the next. After each word, the next must either form a compound word with the previous or help form part of a known phrase. Think ‘orange’ and ‘juice’, ‘rain’ and ‘forest’ and so on.

Jigsaw Block Sort keeps up the puzzle trend with its hybrid of jigsaw, block jam and solitaire mechanics. Meanwhile, Archer Knight: The Savior has players sneaking through enemy lines and heroically taking them down with a trusty bow and arrow. Joust Battle: Medieval War continues the action with arenas and knights and 3D duels.

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• Smash Fest

Founded only recently in July 2025, Flow Games is a Turkish-based mobile games studio.

Despite being a young company, the studio was founded by industry veterans with a host of experience, including Buturay Üstündağ, formerly of Peak and Fomo Games, alongside former CEO of Good Job Games Mehmet Emin Taşci and Aygün Kaplan, art director at Dream Games. The team also secured backing from Turkish venture capital fund Ludus Ventures.

Flow Games’ debut title, Smash Fest, has become the studio’s first major focus as it looks to scale the game. AppMagic estimates currently place it close to $3 million in gross player spending within a month of its June 2026 launch.

As an emerging studio in the growing mobile market in Türkiye, Flow Games is establishing early, fast-growing momentum with Smash Fest.

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• Airport Idle
• Police Station Idle
• Dream Hospital
• My Shopping Mall

Five years after founding, SekGames has launched more than 100 mobile games with hits like Dream Hospital, Police Station Idle and My Shopping Mall in the vanguard. The collective portfolio has reached approximately 20m downloads by tapping into the casual market.

Flagship Airport Idle sees players manage their own airport from the baggage area to boarding, hiring staff and serving passengers to the best of their ability. Strategy meets idle simulation in this one – reaching the most installs out of any game in SekGames’ portfolio. In fact, downloads and player spending have both been ascending in 2026.

The growth follows a pre-seed investment secured in 2025 from Qatar Development Bank, spurring this studio on in the hybridcasual mobile games space. Selected as one of 11 startups for the Startup Qatar Investment Program, this Istanbul-based developer said it would use the funds to accelerate growth and expand its team.

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• Raid Rush
• Arcane Arena
• Trading Master 3D
• Home Restoration
• Airport Master

Located in Ankara, Türkiye, Panteon has built a broad mobile games portfolio across the hypercasual, hybridcasual and midcore genres since its founding in 2012. The studio has developed a range of titles, including Trading Master 3D, Home Restoration, Airport Master and Raid Rush.

Some of Panteon’s game milestones include Trading Master 3D surpassing more than 30 million users within its first month. Elsewhere in the portfolio, Raid Rush has become one of the studio’s strongest performers, with AppMagic estimates placing the strategy title close to $70 million in gross player spending.

Beyond expanding its catalogue, Pantheon explored big events and collaborations, including an IP crossover for a Terminator 2 event within Raid Rush.

While many of its biggest titles have been established for some years now, the studio’s ability to maintain engagement across a host of different titles highlights its long-term approach to games.

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• Find the Cat
• Find the Cat 2
• Art Block Puzzle: Snap & Merge
• What the Hex!
• Color Sort

Mobile games studio Agave Games is a key contributor to Türkiye’s puzzle games scene, as a mobile studio with a strong portfolio of casual, hypercasual, and hidden object games. After starting out in the industry back in 2021, the company made its mark with 2024’s Find the Cat.

These cats appear in stylish images with a hand-drawn style, easy on the eyes in a minimalist black-and-white. Found felines turn bright orange, popping on the page and ranging from the humble housecat to scuba divers and even superheroes.

Everyone loves cats and mobile gamers are no exception. As a result, this flagship helped propel Agave to a Series A round of $18m, supporting continued development of Find the Cat and new game launches too.

That investment came in late 2024 when Find the Cat had recently hit 10m installs. Today, it has more than 50m downloads to its name.

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• Hunter Assassin
• Beauty Care!
• Sling Drift
• Doctor Care
• Riddle Master

Rovio’s often in the headlines for the Angry Birds brand or its recent ties with Sega, but the studio also owns hypercasual developer Ruby Games, acquired back in 2021.

This was just three years after Ruby Games’ founding, with Rovio snapping it up after the success of top-down title Hunter Assassin. It’s a title that achieved more than 100m installs before the acquisition, ranking as the sixth most-downloaded game of 2020 globally. No small feat for an İzmir-based studio, especially over half a decade ago.

Today the title has more than 250m total downloads, while Sling Drift brings another 100m of its own to the portfolio – which has more than 1bn installs across all Ruby Games titles. Doctor Care and Riddle Master have also found success, published by Ruby Games, among others. The team’s game selection process has a 75% success rate at the publishing level.

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• Critical Strike
• Polygun Arena

Based in Istanbul, Türkiye, Vertigo Games has built its reputation around its multiplayer action titles, with flagship Critical Strike laying the foundation for the studio. The mobile FPS, first released in 2017, has since grown into a long-running live game surpassing 153.5m lifetime installs last year.

Outside of Critical Strike, Vertigo released another FPS, this time beyond mobile with PolyGun Arena. This multiplayer shooter first launched on Steam and then followed with a mobile release in 2024.

Across its game portfolio, Vertigo has now reached more than 190m players worldwide. In addition to supporting its shooter games, Vertigo has explored new approaches to monetisation through the direct-to-consumer model via its partnership with Aghanim.

With a focus on the competitive FPS genre and exploring new ways to expand, the Istanbul-based studio continues to establish itself within the Turkish games sector and has been substantially scaling its team for a bright future.

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• Gin Rummy Plus
• Spades Plus
• Bid Whist Plus
• Okey Plus
• 101 Okey Plus

Zynga Turkiye was established following Zynga’s $100 million acquisition of Peak Games’ card games business back in 2017, bringing the Istanbul-based development team into Zynga’s wider operations.

The studio is responsible for a portfolio of long-running titles, including Gin Rummy Plus, Spades Plus, Bid Whist Plus and three Okey games.

Several of these games have continued to generate significant player spending over the years since launch. According to AppMagic estimates, Spades Plus has surpassed $200 million in gross player spending, while Gin Rummy Plus has generated more than $130 million.

By keeping focused on a specific genre rather than expanding across multiple categories, Zynga Turkiye has been able to build its expertise and portfolio around long-running social card and board game titles, building a strong understanding of the genre and its audience.

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• Supermarket Simulator
• Toy of War

Nokta Games made its start in 2017 with debut title Toy of War following two years later. Fast-forward to 2026 and Supermarket Simulator is at the forefront, putting players in charge of the cashier, money management, volume of goods and shop layouts.

The title is available on Steam and Xbox Game Pass with various DLCs earning extra revenue from ice creams, electronics, a bakery and more, with the version 1.5 patch improving alignment of shelves, furniture and more. GameDev.ist helped make the Xbox edition possible, while attention from Unity has led to a visit from the engine maker and collaboration on some exciting ideas.

Earlier this year, Nokta Games helped out fellow Turkish studio Hogo Games by leading an investment round, trusting and endorsing this studio while supporting the broader expansion of Türkiye’s games sector.

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• Basketball Arena
• Online Head Ball

With over a decade creating social mobile games under its belt, Izmir-based Masomo Gaming kickstarted its industry journey with Online Head Ball in the 2010s. After setting a new record for Türkiye – becoming the most-played social mobile game in the country at the time – Head Ball 2 followed as successor and went on to top iOS charts numerous times.

Having an impact on the global stage, Head Ball 2 reached gamers in over 200 countries and gives stiff competition in the casual football games market.

Since then, Masomo has broadened from football to wider sports with Basketball Arena, a multiplayer title adding a superpowered twist. It’s got an arcade feel with 1v1 matches, characters to upgrade and team stats to monitor.

AppMagic estimates put portfolio earnings beyond $100m, adding a good chunk of revenue to owner Miniclip’s collection, following an acquisition in 2019. Masomo currently operates from Türkiye and the UK.

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• Liar’s Bar

Curve Animation is a curious entrant in this list of the Top 30 Türkiye Game Makers of 2026. That’s not to doubt the talent of its team – but the developer’s origins don’t make it an obvious success story in gaming.

Based in Ankara, as the company’s own website explains, the studio is made up of a team of animators, storytellers, software specialists and concept artists that have “been creating original visual contents for feature films, company promos, animated TV series and games in Türkiye and abroad”.

Its website also lists animated film and TV projects like Fogville Mystery and Antin and Kuntin.

Yet its big hit – not listed on its own site – is 2024 PC release Liar’s Bar, now also available on mobile on Google Play. Set in a “sketchy” bar, up to four players engage in games such as Liar’s Deck, Liar’s Dice, Liar’s Slots and Liar’s Poker. The catch for these classic games? The title encourages deception and, if you’re caught, the consequences can be deadly. It’s a game unlike any other on Steam.

The concept – which, by the way, stars an anthropomorphic cast – saw it make it to the top 100 most played game rankings on Steam in 2025, an impressive feat for the studio’s debut PC title.

As with another developer in the top 10 of this list, Curve Animation and Liar’s Bar proves Türkiye isn’t just about mobile – where it’s of course highly successful. This games hub is open to a wide array of creative talent, able to find opportunities on PC, too.

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• Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
• Mount & Blade

Türkiye has built a reputation as one of the world’s hottest mobile games hubs – and maybe even the most exciting market for creativity in the puzzle genre. But the country’s games industry isn’t just a one-trick pony. There are successful established companies and talented startups in the PC and console realms, too.

One of those more established studios is Taleworlds Entertainment, the developer behind the Mount & Blade series. The developer has been around for more than 20 years now, making waves with the first medieval action RPG Mount & Blade way back in 2008.

Over the years, the game has received expansions including Warband and With Fire & Sword. By 2022, the company fully launched Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord after a couple of years in Early Access. Players can create their character and engage in diplomacy, craft, trade or battle in the world’s large sandbox.

Support for the game remains, with expansion War Sails launching in November 2025.

The franchise has sold millions of copies and Mount & Blade II remains one of the most played games on Steam. At the time of writing, the title had over 35,000 concurrent players on the platform. When the game launched into Early Access in 2020, it was said to have hit nearly 250,000 concurrent users – showing the power of the IP and the game’s quality.

Mobile may pick up the headlines when it comes to Türkiye’s success on the global stage, but studios like Taleworlds Entertainment prove that the country’s talented developers can produce hits across genres and platforms.

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• Merge Dragons
• Merge Magic

Gram Games was once a highly exciting casual games developer, more focused on downloads than IAP revenue as it rapidly prototyped games and launched top games like 1010! And Six!.

But the studio had grander ambitions and hatched a plan to enter the midcore space, focused on IAPs over ads. The fruit of those labours, straight out of its London studio, was Merge Dragons – originally launched in 2016 as a solo project by San Francisco-based developer Ray Mazza, from whom Gram Games acquired the title.

These days, a merge game might seem like a no-brainer, given hits like Microfun’s Gossip Harbor and Metacore’s Merge Mansion over the years. But a decade ago, and this word will be used a few times in this list, Gram Games trailblazed the category to uncover its true potential. It’s since gone on to generate more than $1.3 billion from player spending across the App Store and Google Play, per AppMagic data. The title continues to rake in millions of dollars per month, too.

Gram’s forays into a new market attracted the attention of Zynga, which spent $250 million to acquire the studio – one of a few key deals the major US publisher has conducted in Türkiye.

In 2019, Gram followed-up Merge Dragons with Merge Magic. While it hasn’t been as successful as its forebear, it’s still accumulated some $200m from IAPs.

Gram is one of Türkiye’s first big breakout successes, helping set the scene for what’s becoming a bustling games hub making some of the world’s top puzzle titles.

ASSOCIATED COMPANIES

Zynga

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• Match Villains
• Police Escape! Match Villains
• Spook Escape! Match Villains

Mobile games publisher Good Job Games has been operating out of Istanbul since 2017, meaning this company already has almost a decade of business behind it. Its games library has reached more than 3.5bn people, with flagship Match Villains at the helm taking a thieving twist on match-3.

Here, players must make matches to break through layers of obstacles, helping the villains on their heist for rare artefacts and competing with friends in the leaderboards. Estimates of the major stores put player spending just shy of the $100m mark, but in the age of D2C, it’s quite possible that’s been surpassed and then some through web shop purchases.

This is a team championing bold ideas, emphasising agency and embracing challenges, with a work culture focused on pushing beyond its limits and turning failures into fresh opportunities. It’s a culture culminating in one of Türkiye’s most impactful games companies today.

And, Good Job Games isn’t just attracting player interest or eager employees. Investments arrived in droves in 2025, with various venture funds contributing to growth and millions of dollars finding their way into the publisher’s hands.

Last February, Good Job Games secured $15m from multiple Menlo Ventures funds – the latter’s first contribution to a Turkish startup. Come March, this number was updated to $23m with an additional $8m in support from Arcadia Gaming Partners, completing Good Job Games’ seed round.

Four months later, in July 2025, the company completed its Series A round with a further $60m secured, co-led by Menlo Ventures and Anthos Capital. It’s brought total support in this Turkish studio to $83m and counting.

One year later, the Match Villains brand has expanded with the release of a new puzzle title, Police Escape! Match Villains. Spook Escape! Match Villains is also being tested in countries like Germany, Brazil and the Philippines.

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• Yarn Loop
• Tile Busters
• Blitz Busters

Founded by five gaming veterans – four of whom came from Peak, including CEO Rina Onur Sirinoglu – Spyke Games has long been full of potential. Sirinoglu, of course, is one of the founders of Peak, one of Türkiye’s most successful ever games companies with a $1.8 billion exit to acquirer Zynga.

To help fulfil Spyke’s immense potential, the studio raised $55m in a seed round in 2022 led by Griffin Gaming Partners. That same year, the developer ranked 41st in our global Top 50 Mobile Game Makers list.

That year also saw Spyke launch its most successful game to date in Tile Busters, which has picked up an estimated $85m+ from IAPs, per AppMagic data. Match-3D title Blitz Busters, launched in 2023, garnered approximately $21m.

Given the studio’s pedigree and its massive raise, you might be thinking: so what’s the fuss? Particularly as Tile Busters’ best days are far behind it. Well, dear reader, Spyke Games has not rested on its laurels. In fact, it jumped onto the sort puzzle craze, by launching the highly successful Yarn Loop.

So far, the title has grown in revenue each month since launch and its peak monthly revenue has surpassed even that of Tile Busters. Following a December 2025 release, it has picked up an estimated $35m+ from IAP spending.

Spyke is up there with the hottest studios in Türkiye right now and a key example of the influence Peak maintains over the industry – and the star power of that studio’s founders, too.

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• Magic Sort
• Car Match – Traffic Puzzle
• Block Out! – Color Sort Puzzle
• Arrow Jam! – Tap Puzzle

Magic Sort maker Grand Games is based in Besiktas, Istanbul, and is a studio on a mission to craft genre-defining games. Its flagship leads with an estimated 75m downloads and $130m in player spending, supported by a broader portfolio of Car Match – Traffic Puzzle, Block Out! – Color Sort Puzzle, Arrow Jam! – Tap Puzzle and more.

Just two years ago, former Zen Match devs were raising $3m in a pre-seed round for their new studio. They succeeded and Magic Sort entered soft launch within four months of the company’s founding.

From the get-go, Grand Games focused on swift execution and innovation as a strategy to stand out from the competition. Leveraging the modern advantages of AI, the game was built and launched quickly while work was already underway on Car Match, too. Back in 2024, up to 30% of each game’s codebase was said to have been made with AI.

Within a year, investment in the studio had increased tenfold with a $30m Series A round accelerating growth, enabling new hires and helping Grand Games scale into global markets like the US.

And the funding hasn’t ended there. Fast-forward to 2026 and Grand Games recently raised a further $70m in its Series B round, rocketing total investment in the company beyond $100m. Valuation has reportedly risen almost sixfold since last year’s round and again fresh funds are being used to accelerate growth. Marketing existing games and an upcoming pipeline are key areas of focus.

From a humble team of four to a company with five autonomous internal studios and around 75 employees, Grand Games has certainly become one of Türkiye’s key players over the past two years.

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• Color Block Jam
• Screw Jam
• Gecko Out
• Twisted Tangle
• Hole People

Amassing more than 2 billion installs across your portfolio is no mean feat, yet it’s one Rollic’s achieved and then some. This mobile publisher has hundreds of games to its name spread across more than 170 countries, with at least 10 titles from that publishing portfolio having topped US App Store charts across categories like most-downloaded puzzle game, sports game and even overall mobile game.

As the industry has continuously evolved, this Istanbul-based publisher has been sure to evolve with it, finding its latest success through a shift from hypercasual to hybridcasual – a strategic manoeuvre that’s been about more than a pure monetisation switch. It’s about core mechanics, user engagement and stronger long-term retention.

That search for the hottest new mechanic means near-endless testing with hundreds of prototypes put through the wringer every month at Rollic. Any product that endures this process and enters further development does so with the team’s confidence, a process resulting in heavy hitters and record breakers like Color Block Jam, one of the most successful mobile releases of recent years.

The game has surpassed $200m in earnings by AppMagic estimates from player spending alone, among the hardest puzzlers to ever scale to such heights. In fact, the difficulty curve is one of Color Block Jam’s unique selling points, with more than 1,000 levels for puzzle fans to tackle and master.

Rollic also spent last year scaling new hybridcasual logic games Hole People and Knit Out, as well as developing multiple new concepts with original and licensed IP. The company’s portfolio was recently highlighted by AppMagic as a standout in Türkiye’s mobile sector, noteworthy for its enormous number of installs.

It’s another Turkish games company owned by Zynga, which snapped up an 80% stake for around $180m in 2020. Years later, the US mobile games giant must feel that was very astute business.

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• Pixel Flow!

Istanbul-based Loom Games made headlines this February when Scopely announced it was acquiring a majority stake in the company in a performance-based deal structure that valued the studio in excess of $1 billion.

With a team size of approximately 20 people, Loom Games wasted no time developing and launching Pixel Flow!, generating millions of downloads and landing a 10-figure deal all within a year of founding. The acquisition came shortly after the developer picked up a seven-figure investment from Arcadia Gaming Partners’s Akin Babayigit and early stage fund e2vc. The speed of its rise has rarely been seen in the industry’s history.

Hybridcasual hits are proving to be something of a speciality from Türkiye and there’s no clearer success story than this one. Pixel Flow! promises fast thinking, brain training and endless fun, delivering with its gameplay mechanics built around colourful pigs and pixel cubes. Tap, flow, repeat until all the cubes are removed.

It’s a formula that’s helped the game earn over $180m to date from player spending – let alone the boatloads that must be coming in from ad revenue. When you’re running a hybrid model with over 30m downloads, those pennies per ad must quickly turn into pounds.

Before Pixel Flow!, the Loom Games founders previously co-founded Crescive Games and made Rollic-published title Twisted Tangle. So while Loom Games’ success was rapid, the team had acquired the experience of working together on successful projects.

When it comes to new ownership by Scopely, CEO Kübra Gündoğan assured this acquisition wasn’t about exiting early, but setting up Pixel Flow! for long-term growth and impact. It’s a new chapter, started early into Loom Games’ story – one that began in Istanbul.

ASSOCIATED COMPANIES

Scopely

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• Toon Blast
• Match Factory
• Toy Blast

Peak is labelled as one of Türkiye’s most successful ever games studios and is credited for spawning a wide array of startups from its talented staff who have left to form their own studios. It’s the Peak ‘mafia’ effect, as we’ve been told.

The studio was founded way back in 2010 – right at the early days of the mobile gaming boom in the West and just before free-to-play would take hold of the market.

Peak’s earlier days saw it release titles like match-3 puzzle Lost Jewels and bubble shooter Lost Bubble, which have each made millions of dollars over the years.

But the studio’s breakout success came with Toy Blast in 2015. The title trailblazed the blast genre and has gone on to pick up some $1.7 billion, according to AppMagic estimates.

Lightning quickly struck twice for Peak as it followed that up with Toon Blast, which has proven even more successful as a multi-billion dollar blockbuster. In fact, 2026 looks to be its most lucrative yet, long after its 2017 launch.

Peak really proved its credentials in the puzzle space with match-3D hit Match Factory, first released in 2023, garnering over $686 million to date. It’s currently, by far, the world’s leading match-3D game and shows that Peak isn’t just a one-trick pony – it can excel across the puzzle genre.

It’s no wonder mobile publishing giant Zynga snapped up Peak for $1.8 billion in 2020. That deal itself followed earlier overtures from Zynga, which purchased the company’s card games for $100m in 2017.

Türkiye’s games industry owes a lot to Peak for helping nurture the talent that today runs some of the country’s most exciting games companies. But Peak isn’t done yet – it continues to excel in its own right.

ASSOCIATED COMPANIES

Zynga

SOFTOGRAPHY

• Royal Match
• Royal Kingdom

Türkiye’s star studio – of a few, to be fair – is straight out of the Peak mafia, co-founded as it was in 2019 by no fewer than five former Peak staff members. The Istanbul-based startup Dream Games quickly raised $7.5 million to fund new puzzle games for mobile. Backed then by Makers Fund, as well as several other investors such as Balderton Capital.

The investment was perhaps an early signal of what was to come for Türkiye, which has become a hotbed of startup activity that seems unchained to the rest of the industry where funding is more scarce.

Since its formation, Dream Games has quickly become one of the most successful mobile games developers in the industry, thanks to the breakout success of match-3 title Royal Match. The highly polished puzzle game has even given King’s Candy Crush Saga a run for its money, becoming the world’s most lucrative title in the genre.

It’s a testament to the creative talent in Türkiye, the sector’s mastery of marketing, expertise in puzzle games and general business nous when competing with the big players. According to AppMagic estimates, Royal Match has generated more than $7.3 billion in revenue to date from the App Store and Google Play.

Dream followed-up Royal Match with another match-3 game, Royal Kingdom, adding new features such as match-3 attacks where players take on the Dark King’s minions. The title’s opening salvo was an enormous marketing campaign with celebrity stars such as LeBron James, Jimmy Fallon, Sharkia and others. Royal Kingdom has so far accumulated approximately $780 million, per AppMagic.

Last year, Dream Games secured a strategic investment from private equity firm CVC – following reports it was seeking $2.5 billion. The ambition is said to build the “Royal Universe”. Given Dream Games’ track record and the abundance of puzzle creativity coming out of Türkiye, this is one developer that’s likely to continue reaching for the stars.