With the development of 20 of the 100 most downloaded games in the US in Turkish studios in April, Turkey succeeded in making the US, one of the biggest markets of mobile games, the export gateway. While the number of mobile game studios in Turkey is increasing, serious interest continues in university game startups, technoparks, and startup acceleration programs.
Turkey is more affordable than other members of the industry in terms of developer costs for gaming startups. Entrepreneurs who make successful sales deals are stated to have a higher rate of remaining as investors or serial entrepreneurs in the gaming industry. What’s more, startups are now on the radar of United States-based gaming companies for their export potential. Especially after Zynga’s acquisition of Rollic and Peak Games, game studios in Turkey are aware that the key to success is being among the most downloaded games in the USA.
According to a report by startups.watch, which oversees the status of startups, there were 20 Turkish games among the 100 most downloaded games in the US in April. Garawel Games emerged as the top-ranked game on the Apple iOS platform throughout the month.
Billion dollar new ventures in the Turkish mobile gaming industry
The potential of gaming initiatives is somewhat dependent on their status in the download list in the US market. In other words, after Zynga’s agreement with Peak Games, which it purchased for $1.8 billion last year, it can be said that there are possibilities of emerging new billion-dollar initiatives from Turkey.
There are 20 games from Turkey in the list of the most downloaded games in the US market. Among the game studios with games on the list, there are multiple games from Good Jobs Games and Rollic. These gaming initiatives have achieved great success, reaching this point through their long-term efforts. Apart from these, it was stated that 61 enterprises collected a total of $509 million from investors in the first quarter of 2021, a new record for the Turkish mobile gaming industry, and 49 of them took place in Istanbul. During this period, Turkey became the 10th largest country in Europe in terms of angel and VC investments and ranked second in the Middle East and North Africa.
New investment areas and export gateways for Turkish-made mobile games
Some of the gaming startups received initial investments or made successful sales deals. In addition, gaming initiatives such as Dream Games, which have received large amounts of early-stage investments, are also included in the Turkish mobile gaming industry. Istanbul-based Dream Games studio achieved great success in the sector by making an investment of $50 million from the Series A investment tour. In addition, download rates can be seen as one of the most important reasons for purchases made. Accordingly, we can say that Turkish game initiatives rank high in the number of downloads. This is one of the reasons why many new businesses make significant investments or sales deals.
Source: Daily Sabah
