The Present and Future of the Turkish Games Industry Discussed in Berlin

The Turkish delegation, which attended the Quo Vadis industry conference held within the scope of the German Games Week on 23-25 April 2013 with the organization of OYUNDER, provided important information and figures on our games scene.

The section of this global conference, led by the German games industry, dedicated to Türkiye began with the session The Turkish Games Industry: Market Overview and Developer Scene . OYUNDER President Tansu Kendirli gave a general introduction to the sector and then handed the floor to Emrah Özer, one of the founders of the Game Developers Turkey (GDT) community. Özer talked about the steps taken and the collaborations established thanks to GDT and introduced his own team and game project, which emerged from this community. Then Assist. Prof. Dr. Güven Çatak, founder of the Bahçeşehir University Game Lab (BUG), introduced BUG and its activities, explained how BUG contributes academically to the community and talked about BUG's education projects for the games industry. Picnic Hippo General Manager Dr. Sertaç Öğüt gave details about the game Bucketz and its development process as a success story from Türkiye, emphasizing the support the sector should give to education and the community. Serhat Koç and Pelin Gürlek, members of the OYUNDER Legal Board and Istanbul Bar Association attorneys, addressed the legal status of games and the taxation legislation in Türkiye. Alper Akcan, founder and General Manager of Mikro Ödeme, closed the session with figures, sharing information about monetary flows in the Turkish games industry and the financial situation of the sector.

The second Türkiye-specific event held within the scope of Quo Vadis 2013 was the panel titled Mind Shift in the Turkish Game Scene . The panel, which brought together different actors of the Turkish games sector, discussed the characteristics of the market and the risks and opportunities for investors. Moderated by Dr. Tonguç İbrahim Sezen, faculty member at Istanbul Bilgi University and representative of the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA), the panel featured as speakers Barış Özistek, CEO of SHR Group, which includes companies such as Joygame and Joymoby, and President of the Turkish Digital Games Federation; Serhat Bekdemir, General Manager of Crytek Istanbul; Dr. Sertaç Öğüt, board member of Picnic Hippo, which achieved international success with Bucketz ; and Mehmet Onur Partal, investment support office specialist at the Istanbul Development Agency (İSTKA), which has allocated a total of 45 million TL to the "creative industries", including digital games, since 2010.

At the beginning of the panel, Dr. Sezen summarized the transformation of the Turkish digital games sector since the late 1980s, while Özistek shared current data on the market in general and the online games market in particular. Dr. Öğüt evaluated the characteristics of the general player profile in Türkiye and the factors shaping gaming habits. Emphasizing that all these factors played a role in Crytek's investment in Türkiye, Bekdemir highlighted the similarities and differences between the Turkish and Middle Eastern markets; Özistek made a similar assessment of the Korean market. Focusing on investment opportunities in Türkiye, Partal summarized how İSTKA decided to support the games sector, the support projects carried out since 2010 and the related process. The panel ended with the speakers sharing their predictions for the future of the Turkish games market.