Turkey’s leading PC and console games developer and publisher TaleWorlds invested in Udo Games, an Ankara-based Turkish mobile game developer. TaleWorlds also acquired the shares of WePlay Ventures and Lima Ventures; the two venture companies led a funding round for Udo Games just about a year ago, investing about $420,000 with a valuation of $4.2 million.
Udo Games will leverage this partnership and start its own publishing division, focusing mainly on publishing hybrid-casual games. TaleWorlds and Udo Games will also dive further into publishing across PC and consoles through this partnership, and they’ll announce a whole new brand with this goal in mind soon.
The Ankara-based mobile game maker has been actively developing video games since it was founded back in 2013 and pushed out multiple successful titles across multiple genres. Incredible Toys, one of the earlier casual titles the Turkish studio developed was a huge success, having won several awards in Turkey and Europe. Most recently, Udo Games has seen major success via its “io” style games, namely Goons.io, Spear.io, Facepunch.io, Boas.io and Blobie.io, these games collectively generated over 45 million downloads and counting.
TaleWorlds CEO Armagan Yavuz shared the following message about the new partnership:
“The game industry in Turkey is developing swiftly, day by day. By supporting Udo Games with the experience we have gained across the world, we aim to bring a user and developer-friendly publishing model to our country, in accordance with ethical publishing principles. I am confident that we will achieve great things together with UDO Games and other young developers on this path.”
Turker Karahan, CEO of Udo Games also commented:
“It is a great opportunity for us to receive investment from and get into partnership with a company such as Taleworlds, which is one of the cornerstones of the Turkish gaming industry.
“We are very excited to start partnerships with studios that we believe will have a very important place in the industry, as well as to realize our goals in terms of publishing. We will take our years of development experience to a different level at the point of publishing, and we will give all the support we can to the studios with which we will establish publishing partnerships to increase their development capabilities.”
The Udo Games CEO also said “Udo Garage” program will continue under Udo’s leadership alongside the new publishing responsibilities. The program aims to lend both Turkish and foreign developers a helping hand by offering mentoring, equipment and office support; ensuring they take the right steps to launch video game companies.
Gökhan Güngör, COO of Udo Games shared the following statement:
“We are very pleased to announce the motto of this strategic partnership as “Ethical publishing”. We have gained many diverse experiences throughout our career as a game developer studio and as a mobile game publisher. Current mobile publishing goals and strategies have non-supportive approaches which may divert the studios from success and advancement.
“At this point, as an experienced developer studio, we believe that a supportive publishing model focusing on the development of teams can be established. With the publishing strategy we have created within this perspective, the most important goal of this partnership will be to enable teams to focus on the games they develop and their progression.
“At the same time, we will continue to ensure that teams find support in all matters they need within our game and product-oriented partnership-building approach that we have already been implementing in the Udo Garage acceleration program. When I think about what we can do for the development of the game industry with this partnership we have made with TaleWorlds, which has always been a pioneer in the Turkish game industry with its success, this partnership excites me even more.”
Taygun Arda Ozturk of TaleWorlds said:
“Our ulterior motive is to provide sustainability to indie producers on both mobile and pc/console sides, and we will offer great added value to gamers by bringing together two successful companies and our teams who are masters of their crafts. It is our main goal to grow the dynamics of the game industry exponentially, following the completion of the related procedures of this partnership within the emerging unity and synergy.
“The opportunity to develop and present holistic building solutions together will bring the rise and innovations in the industry by far. I hope this merger will bring new color and excitement to the gaming industry.”
WePlay and Lima Ventures wish Udo Games good fortune in the new adventures to come
WePlay Board Chairman Bora Kocyigit said it’s always been their goal to financially and strategically support gaming startups and help them compete in the market on a global scale. Kocyigit then shared the following message:
“WePlay and Lima Ventures have been aware of Udo Games’ huge potential since the very first day we invested in them. Udo used the funding to a great effect and they’ve been quite successful. However, truth be told, we didn’t expect to see such fast growth that allowed us to exit this early.
“WePlay is yet to celebrate its second anniversary, and seeing a successful exit like Udo’s in just one year shows us we’re on the right track. We’ll continue to support early-stage gaming startups and create new exit stories. Sincere congratulations to the Udo Games team, I wish them luck in their next projects to come.”
Lima Ventures Managing Partner Ahmet Argun also commented and said they believe in their experience and knowledge in the video gaming startup space. Argun said the following about the sale:
“Our prime skill is to find and invest in the right business partners, support these startups with our smart money feature throughout the whole process and grow together. It’s a major success to make a successful exit when the rest of the world is going through a recession period.“
Lima Ventures Managing Partner Resat Volkan Günel also commented and said:
“Partnering up with WePlay, we aim to invest in even more startups in the video game industry. With Lima Ventures’ expert and professional team, we’ll have more success stories across other industries as well.”
As for TaleWorlds, the Turkish video games giant was quite active during the Gamescom 2022 period. The company brought a playable console version of Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord to the conference and also announced the release date of the full version of the game, both for PC and consoles.
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