How Istanbul Became the New Capital of Mobile Gaming – And Where It’s Headed Next
Written by Michail Katkoff, founder of Deconstructor of Fun, a games industry veteran of 15 years, who's no stranger to hammams, pide and late-night kebabs around Taksim.
Türkiye has rapidly established itself as one of the world's most dynamic mobile gaming hubs. With a strong talent pool, an entrepreneurial mindset, and a track record of success, the country is now the second-largest gaming hub in EMEA after the UK. And it continues to draw venture capital investments as other ecosystems face capital droughts.
Today, Istanbul holds the undisputed crown of the world's mobile gaming capital. It has been my privilege to host the annual tentpole event in the city with Google since 2022. The Turkish gaming community has given me unforgettable memories and great friendships. Watch the 2024 talks here.
Today, Türkiye is more than just a hotbed for gaming startups—it’s a fully developed ecosystem with multiple layers of talent, investment, and repeat founders. But what about tomorrow? While the headlines focus on billion-dollar exits and a new generation of gaming startups, it’s worth asking: Is this momentum sustainable, or is the industry facing unspoken challenges?
The Past: How Türkiye Became a Gaming Powerhouse
The Turkish gaming market evolved from web-based card and board games in the early 2000s to mobile-first powerhouses in the 2010s. Peak Games put the industry on the global map with its $100 million card game asset sale to Zynga in 2017, followed by its record-breaking $1.8 billion acquisition in 2020. Gram Games’ $250 million Zynga deal reinforced the idea that Turkish studios weren’t just successful—they were acquisition targets.
This led to an investment boom in 2021-2022, with Dream Games emerging as the fastest Turkish unicorn, proving that Turkish studios could go beyond hyper-casual into puzzle dominance. Now, Dream’s valuation could push toward $5 billion, showing that the company has truly cracked long-term engagement with exceptional gameplay experience. The next question is can the company expand from one mega-hit to two or more.
The Turkish gaming industry has continued to attract capital at a record-setting pace.
Source: Invest in Türkiye
The Present: A Thriving and Ultra-Competitive Landscape
As of March 5th, Turkish developers have 8 titles in the top-grossing 100 games list on Apple’s App Store, including newcomers Color Block Jam (Rollic) and Magic Sort (Grand Games). Meanwhile, Türkiye remains one of the top destinations for VC investments in gaming. There are now at least 25 VC funds that invest in video game startups based out of Turkey. And while I’m sure they are all capable investors, I have to highlight one firm above them all: Laton Ventures established by our friend Görkem Turk.
Listen to my podcast with the founders of Gram Games, Mehmet Ecevit, and Grand Games, Batuhan Celebi - and of course the one and only, Görkem Turk, founder of Laton Ventures.
A fresh example of the strong investor demand is Grand Games, which raised $30 million in its Series A funding round in December, marking the fastest-ever Series A round in the country.
However, behind the success, talent competition has intensified, and the industry faces a critical question: Can it continue this trajectory?
The Challenges: What Could Slow Down Türkiye’s Gaming Growth?
The Limited Talent Pool
Türkiye is not a small country. With a population of nearly 90 million and a large number of young, well-educated, and highly ambitious people, it is also uniquely talent-rich. Nevertheless, the pace of growth the gaming ecosystem is experiencing makes homegrown talent a bottleneck. And the challenge most studios in the country have is that they only hire other Turks.
The high-profile exits and acquisitions in the industry attracted top talent from leading universities and other reputable companies outside the gaming industry. In fact, gaming is the most demanded industry to work for fresh university graduates in Türkiye.
However, competition for talent intensifies all while the need for the number of people to operate a live game increases. Will there be enough qualified workforce to fuel both the booming as well as the upstart studios?
Sharper Takes: Dream Games’ Real Test
Dream Games dethroning Candy Crush is a huge deal. They have cracked long-term engagement with exceptional gameplay experience, as well as with a massive UA spending and best-in-class ad creatives. Can they build a second hit, or is this a one-game wonder? The new litmus test of Dream’s legacy will be Royal Kingdom. Will we crown the new king?
Harder Questions: Can Türkiye Break Out Beyond Puzzle & Casual?
While Turkish studios have mastered hybrid-casual and puzzle monetization which have clearly very large audiences, genres like RPGs, shooters, and strategy games remain untapped except a few successes such as Hunter Assassin, and Mount and Blade as a groundbreaking PC game from Türkiye. Is this because of a cultural preference for rapid iteration over long-term bets, or because past exits made staying in familiar territory too appealing?
While the Turkish mobile gaming studios have been out-executing each other with incrementally innovative games, the country’s PC developers have shipped unique indie blockbusters like Liar’s Bar and Battle Bit.
While Türkiye’s gaming success is undeniable, not every studio has made it. For every Peak or Dream Games, there are dozens of studios that failed to scale.
What separates winners from losers in the Turkish market? Execution speed, market adaptability, relentless focus on product quality—but also to be creative in where it matters to stand out from the cutthroat competition of the mature gaming market.
Listen to my interview with Rollic’s (TakeTwo Interactive) CEO Burak Vardal on how he’s putting creativity over execution - and it’s working!
Conclusion: The Road Ahead
Türkiye’s gaming industry isn’t just a hype story—it’s a real, battle-tested ecosystem that has repeatedly proven its ability to compete on the world stage. The challenge now is sustaining that success while evolving beyond the playbook that made the first generation of hits possible.
With the right mix of execution, adaptability, and long-term thinking, Türkiye is poised to remain one of the most exciting gaming hubs in the world. The next few years will determine whether it continues to dominate—or whether it needs to reinvent itself again. But if you ask me, we’re just at the beginning…
Psst… Want to know how a Turkish startup raised a $55M seed round? Check out ISTANBUL CONFIDENTlAL with RINA ONUR , CEO @ Spyke Games / co-Founder of Peak Gam01es
