Peak Games, Turkey’s first unicorn and achieving tremendous success in the international game market, has hundreds of talented employees. The torch that was lit by Peak shone a light on the path to success, and those who left Peak created their own paths that lead to success over time. We’ve witnessed quite many success stories, both in terms of sales and investments.
Things have changed for the Turkish games market and they’ve changed drastically. An acquisition of this size led to a whole new growth. Day by day, we see more Turkish-made games topping the charts. If we are in this situation in the mobile field today, it would be unfair if we do not say that Peak Games’ contribution to this is enormous. It wouldn’t be extreme to say Peak Games played a major part in making the Turkish mobile games industry what it is today.
And some of the ex-Peak employees are following the same trend but in their own way. They embarked upon new adventures and helped the industry grow by making new and fun games. What companies did they start, and what success did they achieve? We prepared a shortlist for you. Grab your coffee and enjoy the read.
Loop Games
- Titles: Match 3D, Match Tile 3D
- Total investment amount: Zero investment
- Founders: Mert Gür
The list starts with Loop Games, a self-funded studio with no investments. The Founder Mert Gür successfully sold the studio’s two hit games Match 3D and Match Tile 3D for $200 million. The company spent the incoming earnings entirely on user acquisition and accessibility, reaching an export figure of $200 million.
The company also announced that it had allocated $ 100 million in investment and advertising budget for the blockchain-based gaming platform called pethereum.io. Loop Games was also the Diamond sponsor of Mobidictum Business Network #3; you can click here for more detailed information about the events! We wish them to carry their success in the hybrid-casual type in the transition to the blockchain.
Dream Games
- Titles: Royal Match
- The total investment received: $468 million
- Founders: Eren Şengül, Hakan Sağlam, Soner Aydemir, Serdar Yılmaz, İkbal Namlı
Dream Games entered the industry by raising $57.5 million in funds before they even had a game. With this move, the company guaranteed the investments would continue in the future. Among the founders of the company are Eren Şengül, Hakan Sağlam, Soner Aydemir, Serdar Yılmaz and İkbal Namlı, who have worked together for many years at Peak Games.
Industry veterans came together and successfully shared their knowledge with the company, and as a result, a company valued at $2.75 billion has emerged. After the investment of 57.5 million dollars, the company reached 155 million dollars, respectively, and 255 million dollars, which it received in January of this year. With the investment they received in January, the total investment amount of the company reached 468 million dollars.
Spyke Games
- Titles: Royal Riches
- Total investment received: $60 million
- Founders: Rina Onur Şirinoğlu, Remi Onur, Fuat Coşkun, Barkın Başaran
Spyke Games received a seed investment of 55 million dollars in January under the leadership of Griffin Gaming Partners. The latter previously managed the investment tours of big names such as Discord, AppLovin, and Overwolf. The company also developed its first game, Royal Riches, after a $5 million investment round in 2020.
The company includes many experienced names who have previously worked at Peak Games, Zynga, and Riot Games. Rina Onur Şirinoğlu, one of these names, still works as a Co-Founder at Peak Games. Remi Onur, another co-founder of Spyke Games, served as CDO & Partner at Peak Games in the past, while Fuat Coşkun Sr. worked as a Software Engineer & Mobile Game Developer. In addition, another name, Barkın Başaran, worked as a Product Manager within Peak Games for almost five years.
Bigger Games
- Titles: Mergedom: Home Design, Design Friends
- Total investment received: $6 million
- Founders: Yankı Yağız Akpek, Erkan Gürel, Hakan Ulvan
Bigger Games, founded in Istanbul in 2019 by Yankı Yağız Akpek, Erkan Gürel, and Hakan Ulvan, who worked together on Toy Blast and Toon Blast at Peak Games in the past, has two games called Mergedom: Home Design and Design Friends. The company, which received an investment of 6 million dollars in the seed financing round held in the USA in 2020, used this financing to grow the team and develop the infrastructure.
Index Ventures led the investment round, including Unity founder David Helgason, Stephane Kurgan, who served as COO at King in the past, and Play Ventures.
The company’s games have more than 110 million downloads today, and this number is increasing day by day. The company is still recruiting and continues to add passionate game developers to its team.
Revel Games
- Titles: Unannounced
- Total investment amount: $4.5 million
- Founders: Ayşe İnal, Aycan Aracı, Emre Pehlevan, Alican Hasırcı
Founded last year by Ayşe İnal, Aycan Aracı, Emre Pehlevan, and Alican Hasırcı, who have worked together for many years at companies such as Zynga, Peak, and Gripati. Revel Games came to the fore with an investment of 4.5 million dollars under the leadership of Garena.
The company’s primary focus is developing new games in the casual puzzle genre. Among the participants of the investment tour were the founders of The Sandbox, Sebastien Borget, and Arthur Madrid.
Gleam Games
- Titles: Fruit Match: Sweet Journey
- Total investment received: $1 million
- Founders: Eser Yoğurtçu, Furkan Bekil, Berkay Bekil
Gleam Games, founded in 2020 by Furkan Bekil and Berkay Bekil, together with Eser Yoğurtçu, one of the oldest employees of Peak, came to the fore with a 1 million dollar investment tour in April. Apart from mobile games, the company, which also develops a cloud-based LiveOps software technology called Marcus, announced that they would use the investment they receive to grow the team.
Gulliver’s Games
- Titles: Restaurant Tycoon
- Total amount of investment received: $750 thousand
- Founders: Doğan Akdag
Gulliver’s Games came to the fore with a seed investment of 750 thousand dollars last year. The company’s founder, Doğan Akdağ, is an experienced name who previously served as Performance Marketing Lead at Peak Games and Senior Performance Marketing Manager at King. Focusing on hybrid-casual and tycoon games, the company received 350 thousand dollars of the investment from Boğaziçi Ventures, 350 thousand dollars from the US-based March Capital, and 50 thousand dollars from the angel investor Özgür Aksoy.
Upon the investment, Doğan Akdağ stated that they would use this financing to develop their infrastructure and dominate the tycoon market. Today, the company continues to recruit talented software developers with open positions.
Cratoonz
- Titles: Cat Heroes: Puzzle Adventure
- Total investment amount: Unspecified
- Founders: Ahmet Çağatay Abacı, Volkan Özen
Cratoonz, which was founded in 2019 by Ahmet Çağatay Abacı and Volkan Özen, came to the fore with the match-3 puzzle game called Cat Heroes: Puzzle Adventure. The game, launched on November 24, 2020, with the soft launch phase, managed to be featured on November 27 by Google.
The company continues to recruit on its web address. Also, Co-Founder Volkan Ozen participated in the webinar series we organized in the past period. You can reach the session called Deep diving into match-3 games of Volkan Özen on the Mobidictum YouTube channel.
Last words
Mobidictum Founder and Managing Director Batuhan Avucan expressed his views on the Turkish game industry as follows;
“The ex-Peak founders definitely ignite the industry. Although as we hear the competition for talent between them is fierce and the scenery is really competitive. We hope to see that Turkey will develop more talents enough for everyone to grow these studios to next level. Mobidictum wishes all of them the best of luck.”
