The Turkish game industry, which has achieved great success with its games in the global top lists, continues to draw attention.
Recently, Peak Games‘ transfer of company shares to the US game developer Zynga for $ 1.8 billion caused the eyes to be turned into this sector again. In addition to the remarkable export success, Turkey’s first “unicorn” appeared in the Turkish gaming industry. The industry is expected to take a larger share from the global game market and to increase its export figure to $ 10 billion.
According to AA news, that includes data from Turkish Game Developers Association (TOGED), the export figure of the sector, which was $400 million in 2015, reached $500 million in 2016, $700 million in 2017 and $1 billion 50 million in 2018.
Trade Minister Ruhsar Pekcan states that the sector’s export figure is expected to reach $1.5 billion.
The Ministry of Trade and the Ministry of Industry and Technology are among those providing the greatest support to the gaming industry. In addition to this, the organizations and institutions such as Turkey Exporters Assembly, Service Exporters Association, Ankara Development Agency and technoparks are support for the Turkish game development industry in different ways.
With the TUBITAK Technology and Innovation Support Programs Presidency, KOSGEB supports are used in the development of the sector, while the Support for Foreign Currency Saving Service Export Support, introduction to advertising, digital markets, software, employment issues contributes to the strengthening of game developers.
According to AA, the ministry has provided 426.7 million lira support for the start-ups in the gaming industry with related organizations in the past 10 years. In this context, as a R&D support, 292 million lira tax and SGK support was provided to 92 start-ups, while 76 million lira to 77 start-ups and 3.5 million lira to 8 universities.
Development agencies supported 17 million lira for 5 projects and KOSGEB supported 1.2 million lira for 67 SMEs. Within the scope of the Competitive Sectors Program, 37 million TL has been contributed to a project.