Istanbul Is the University of Puzzles: Dream, Grand, Loom & the Founder Factory

One thing is very interesting, right? We make unicorns. But
it's rolling the dice. [music] Felix with ads making those coins rise. Jack up designs worlds chasing the sky. We're the two and a half gamers. The midnight [music] crew talking UA ads and game design too. Mat Felix Shak bringing the insight. We're rocking those vibes till the early daylight. Master eyes on [music] the prize tracking data through the cyerspace skies. Felix stacks colors like a wizard in disguise. Jacks [music] lift us to the high. Two and a half gamers talking smack. Slow hockey sick. Got your back. [music] Ads are beautiful. They like the way. Click it fast. Don't delay. Uh-huh. [music] Uh-huh. Ah. [music] Ah.
Hello everybody. Hello. Hello. This is Two and a Half Gamers. My name is Mat

Ancharich
and Okay, real talk before we start. This episode is brought to you by Potencus. And if you're a mobile game publisher tired of leaving money on the table, listen up. Potencus is a premium ad network built by people who have actually been on both sides of this industry. Game publishers, agencies, successful exits. So, they get it. Here's the thing. Potencus has direct deals with Amazon, Apple, Coca-Cola, Vodafon. It's not programmatic. It's direct. Those budgets land in your game at premium CPMs. No middleman tax. And they're handle everything with their in-house team in terms of the critics. Plus, they've partnered with Playable Maker, Ving Wing. So, they will take brands YouTube videos or static images and actually turned into a playable ad or reverted video. Proper interactive format built for gaming inventory. Brands getting a gaming native creative. Publishers are getting a higher CPMs.

Everyone wins. Head to potensus.com to get started or check their creative portfolio in the link in the show notes. Thank you very much Potencus for sponsoring this episode. We have Vatuhan over here. We are your hosts and we have special guests. So Batuan, welcome to the podcast. It's your first time. So please introduce yourself to the audience and then you know we might have some questions and discussions.
Thank you so much for hosting me. It's a pleasure. My name is Batwan. I'm the founder and managing director of Moikum, a very large business network connecting the games industry. Basically, it is famous with coverage of the Turkish games industry news for the last 11 years now and with its conference annually in Istanbul in October. 7 8th October.
We're going to be there. We are going to be there all of us.
Yes. This time
this time all of us. Yes. For you it's it's the first time.
Fourth year in a row or fifth year? I don't remember.
But you are. Yeah.

He has all the
Yeah. Yeah. You're the OG. I always wanted to come but I was always in in US or or somewhere like traveling but now this time great timing. I'm I'm you know I'm looking forward.
I heard a lot of good things. A lot of good things.
So So uh [sighs] well since you said you're covering the the news in Turkey and and pretty much everything. Where should we start like where the Turkey actually is? because we see a lot of interesting numbers coming from from Turkey from different categories and it's booming. I don't want to say again because I don't think it ever never stopped booming. So, but now it's more and more growing. Let's call it that way. It's still it's still growing.
Yeah. I mean interesting times obviously we have a lot of investment news coming in still but when you look at the market we also don't see some of the news coming in as well. So what happened compared to last 11 years?

Yeah,
first five years we we didn't have any gaming news, right? like no investments, nothing until peak was sold pretty much and then it followed like Masamo and then
Role and and so on and since 2022 2023 then we had these 100 million plus exits, right? Ruby games, Alikus and so on when the money was cheap and acquisition the multipliers were flying high like a lot of
founders
good old days
good old days some of the founders who didn't exit back then is still thinking like why I didn't sell it but uh good times and when you look at 2024 2025 you see a lot of preede and see drowns right
but now I what I realize we we don't get that much news in terms of uh preede and seat coverage. I think now everyone is waiting uh to hit the series A at least
for the direct sales right uh I mean the

direct sales will be a little bit tricky if you're if you don't have a case like loom obviously but even for that we we made an announcement for the first investment so Turks are going underground and then like really focusing on the and the execution right now there's still a lot of investments going on behind behind the scenes. Some of them are the ones who declared you see on the dues.
Yeah.
But a lot of wees the founders don't want to declare as well. So it is actually more active than what
tell Yeah. Tell us more. What do what do you have? What do you have for us? We don't see we don't see at least you know
I mean the the puzzle is still the hot market obviously. Yeah. So I think the games industry and investors gave the puzzle making job to Turks. That's what I understand. [laughter] If someone comes up with an RPG game, they might say like guys like okay let's

let's stick to puzzle. At least this is what I realize. I mean now I I haven't talked with the new founders who got the investment right now like some of them I knew from the previous companies that they were an employee and now they formed the formed new companies but like everyone is trying to make a hit on the puzzle now the companies who work with the publishers would do Rolic Lion it's very know it's pretty much known that most of them are looking for an investment as well you know their time
might run up eventually Because I mean with AI the prototyping I think most of the studios are also internally building this fast prototyping machine that even that part if you have like a very good CTO that part won't be
um I don't know an advantage for a studio because everyone will just do the first prototyping. So
okay we we know puzzle the puzzle makes it lucrative. the masters one Turkish

studios to get like to have um to make a puzzle game but I don't know how many more puzzle studios we can produce that's also one question talent when it comes to talent I mean if one person has little bit of entrepreneurship inside of him or her and if they worked in a very good studio they can leave and then go for an investment because on top of the trade very good VCs that we have like the gaming we see is we have a lot of uh newcomers on the market who wants a success on the on the gaming as well you know so
it will be maybe easier even to convince them to get an investment so more investments are coming for sure but we'll see what happens in 2027 2028 basically
and it's everyone yakir obviously
just saying like what's the prediction like do we still think like the market can support more of these puzzle games

because eventually and this was also my biggest kind of a critique of Turkey that or worry yeah more worry that like at some point this puzzle
demand will be satisfied and then like it won't be
is it true though Yahoo we are talking about this puzzle demand to be satisfied for come like few years already
I know I know I know I know I'm just saying like let me let me let me do some data stuff
yeah and now now you can now you can you know you have your chance to actually respond to that question because as soon as he starts talking again. We can't we don't we can't talk anymore.
Obviously, let's look at the numbers. So, we have the sword category, which is the Turkish, let's say, home ground now. And it grew all the way from literally nothing in 2023 to something like 80 mil a month. Spearheaded by
from nothing to something. Oh my god.
Yeah. Spearheaded by Pixlow, Magic Sword, and Hexa Sword and all the other guys.
Loop. Come on. What?
Yeah.
Yarn loop. There's like all these. Yeah. Yeah, I mean like all all the ad revenue that you don't see in this chart is

added on top of which is which is still like bigger. So this most probably is already hitting like 120 mil a month easily
easily easily easily.
But again this is kind of getting let's say more and more at ocean. Then we have the block category which is dominated by color block gem and blockout which is just grand games going over here which both games are amazing but just saying like nobody else is even like close to like what what these studios are doing there
yet you know like we didn't we didn't even think like there's going to be a second block game a couple years ago and then suddenly
this is the best example of like innovation through level design because blockout is literally the same mechanics as cover blockchain but the level design is vast ly different.
Yeah,
like kudos to what the guys did here. And then we have of course the match tree category which is quite consolidated where um again it went through its peak summer 2025 and it's still being a big battle between Dream King and Playix. I

think Player [snorts] most probably is winning here because in this chart you don't see Township which is a match three game now as they completely changed it. So I guess they are kind of winning. Uh but again these are estimates also but it's like headto-head. Nobody was able to last five years to even do something here. And last thing we heard from our Chinese friends that they kind of
like we don't want to do this anymore. We rather do merge because it's just more profitable, better numbers, better KPIs. So that's there. Then we have Match Blast which is the tomb blast and toy blast. Basically Peak's home ground which is now completely dominated by Peak. that was taken away from King before where there were Petty Rescue Saga or even Angry Birds Plus and this is nowhere. So again, Peak dominating their home turf. And then we have Match Factory which is also a big game from Peak now. Again, doing pretty much most

of the revenue in this category even though we have stuff like Triple Match CD and Triple Match 3D but those are kind of let's say a little bit different games. But yeah, this is again just peak few games there. And this last one in my opinion is the most like let's say this is this is my tip for next year where this this whole thing will move in Turkey and it's physics based puzzles because you may heard of this small game called Smashfest and then it had 50 clones in one month
because this whole category is dominated by Angry Birds which have been here since you know event time. Yeah, that's not it's
they're not doing much innovation here. And if you look at the numbers, you see like again, this is just the Angry Birds living their best life here and then suddenly bam, there's Royal Smash, there's Smashfest, there's [snorts] whatever Smash 70 clones there all scaling up.
Super Smash. Yeah.
So, so we'll see. So, my guess is like it's still, you know, we still see these like categories of puzzles popping up, especially these deterministic puzzles.

But again, my question is for how long? because it's not that easy and especially like with this smash thing
you could see like
5 minute question
how how fast like 50 clones were there
not only from like the Turkish studios but also from Vietnamese and Koreans we literally checked a game yesterday where Super had two smash clones so that's my question like is something done there do you see do you see any initiatives to diversify to different genres in Turkey currently
I mean every time people start saying is it it like
is that all and then some
someone come up something else yeah
like I don't know with the Turkish mindset we have this I will do it better mindset so I think if I don't know more founders will focus on the untapped parts like what Angry Birds with the smash mechanic like physic based I think eventually they will come up with something better and then the rest is execution I think that part is the how

the mindset that works because when you look at it, it was always not I will create something completely new but it was more like I will do something better. So and you like you see this uh like Angry Birds for example you mentioned that nothing hap nothing happened and then you know these clones came in and now that is disrupted. probably this kind of uh reaction will happen to for other games which was staying on the top forever. So Turks will always try to find something new to do better not completely innovate from scratch but to do better. But one question uh for like from the investor perspective as well like we had like we are working with one puzzle studio for the fundraising and one of the major US-based VC mentioned that it is very crowded space like we are not going there okay like for for the for the hybrid puzzle right but then the when you look at the local VCs they are still looking at the puzzle genre but then how

long the talent can keep it up when I asked this then some of the founders says yes uh the prices are still increasing and then some of them say okay like not all the companies will make it so few of them will uh you know close and then you will hire that talent I think now we have just enough studios to keep that machine flowing when you look at grand games I think last time they had 70 70 people or something maybe maybe it's more now loom is around 40 something like that and like I was just randomly checking grand games uh team and I I saw one founder was extra start a company now it's in working in grand so more will get an investment they will get the experience and then if they don't succeed or like they will join to a bigger studios right
but I think
yeah in terms of talent uh we'll like we

we don't produce we don't train talent anymore we train founders
who is going to work.
Yeah, that doesn't work.
That's a Yeah, that's very interesting because uh like as a nation we just have this entrepreneurial entrepreneurship uh mindset. So like again if someone will be willing to jump uh ship there's also high chance of uh they will get an investment. It's just when I look at the studios who work with the publishers right now let's say they work with one of the top publishers but they work on the puzzle. I mean obviously these guys never had a marketing experience that's why they work with the publishers but now what they lack is the marketing skill. if they if they find a co-founder who knows the marketing like why wouldn't I invest because they were already doing some good games with the
big publishers
with with the publishers you know so there's a very big opportunity for the marketing people to find themselves a nice studio to to to start working you

know so yeah just to summarize talent obviously prices like talent cost is uh very high definitely more than in Europe it's Is that so? Is it more more than Europe? Okay.
Entry and mid. Yes. On the senior parts I don't know because I mean like king is how old is that company right?
Yeah of course
like a VP of king I don't know how much but uh entry level mid senior you know like this kind of development I think it's it's very high already. And when you look at the top charts, of course, like Dream, Grand L,
they can peak, you know, they can pay a lot for the top telling.
Yeah. The 7K intern for Dream. I know.
Yeah.
So, whatever whatever is in between, they need to get more u like funding and if they're doing good, they will go for series A, T Monster, Cipher, and so on. I think that's why now people like go,

they don't shout too much. They're all waiting for the series A so they can like get good talent and uh scale for the next round
cuz I wouldn't underestimate this really because you have still guys like I don't know Pantheon guys which are doing great with Raid Rush. You have what's the name? Critical Force with Critical Strike guys. They have the Counter Strike. Yeah. Shooter game. Like there are studios that are also not doing puzzles and doing pretty well. It's just that it's more of a like rare occasion than
continuing philosophy. you know pretty well versus Loom then it's very different scale that's
but Loom story is exactly as as Batan said like Loom is one of those studios that work with the publishers got the expertise got the knowhow and then went on its own and bam same goes for rotate lab again Sally and the guys did exactly the same thing and now they made it themselves so like this is how it's it's being done there and this expertise chain is great the problem is that all the expertise chain is just in puzzle
and I think people kind of underestimate a little bit the investment in like new genres but again like puzzle is puzzle.

I understand that it's much easier to
but if you don't if you have already the expertise and you can make it I mean more efficient to actually then raise and then build a company and then you know like you get all the
other topic which is why are these puzzles sprouting out so fast because of the subsidies. So what's new on the subsidies [laughter]
because you can't even compete right with the the government help if you're outside of Turkey. I mean, yeah, we have this competitive advantage overright quite a lot, especially if you get your money back fast. Uh, you know, it works. I guess a lot of uh international companies are also looking ways to start a company in Turkey and then, you know, utilize these government incentives. But one one small note for the like the different genres like when you look at like for example Vertigo is like more than 10 year old company right and right now what happens in Turkey I think the investors drive the market a little bit more

basically like you can't
like in Vietnam I see that life cost is cheaper than Turkey right especially
everything is cheaper so you you can pretty much start a studio with two three person without the funding pretty much. At least this is what they told me like the founders
more than three person. Yeah, you can.
Yeah, of course. 200 people studios. But when you look at the market today, if you don't have your initial money or like from your own pocket or from the investor money, you can't just randomly start making a shooter game or an RPG game or something like that. So if you're depending on the investor's uh you know funding you kind of have to go and build what their mandate wants.
So they will puzzle.
Yeah. That puts the Turkish games industry very again very I think dependent on the puzzle part which is I'm not sure how sustainable in terms of general games industry terms but not

sure who cares as well as long as it it's sold for a billion. But yeah, if we had a couple of RPG, I don't know, one MMO RPG, couple of more racing simulation. I don't know, it it would be a more diverse games.
Yeah. But yeah, we have like two shooter companies. Vertigo is doing very well, good friends. But if they started today, would anyone invest? I don't know.
Exactly.
Yeah. Like this is also this this like one very unique thing for Turkey that most of the world is struggling currently with a giant onslaught of Chinese games and all the genres are getting eaten by Chinese pretty much
except except puzzle
because forex is dead merge is dead uh AAA is being run over currently with like lots of stuff coming there simulations and like farming games all these other things like especially in like adbased games and all these things like they're all like very very big Chinese studios, RPG, let's me not even not talk about that.

But match three or like these deterministic sword puzzles like there's still not big Chinese companies running these.
This is hard to make.
I know it's very hard to make and special expertise that you cannot get by doing it. You need to literally get it from the Turkish university of puzzles basically working at Dream or somewhere there. So that's I guess like big advantage. But yeahing up I think it won't be the the Chinese to kind of go here. I think it will be the Vietnamese.
I mean, you know, the games better, obviously, like who does what, but from what I hear, Vietnam situation, it's definitely something that uh makes Turkish founders also a little bit like, okay, these guys are copying fast, coming fast. And last time I was there was last year, and one of the studio manager mentioned, yeah, we do copy games right now, fine, but we will come up with the ideas as well. So they they kind of knew what they are doing. It's not like randomly building things, you know.
No, they already passed this point. They

already passed this point because if you look at it from long-term perspective. Yeah. Yeah. Like screw them kind of broke it out when they did screw them and now we have already like this end drama of colony flow and food hunt which is an iteration on pixel flow which is quite profitable already there and it's it's kind of spreading more and more. Like last biggest news for me from there is when I came founder like the biggest company in Vietnam pretty much left took like 30 best people and started a new company Dino games which will be this kind of a you know same has happened with peak where like good people leave set up new company that scales up da da da da da but still they struggle a lot with u international kind of influence and expertise English as well man like that's like English is a problem I'm on the call with translators I won't lie
but they they are hungry but Yeah, the capital is still not there also because it's not that easy to invest in like a Vietnamese company. I think NCOFT is the only one that was able to acquire a few there and that's there but it it will come. It will come like 2 three years is no question asked. One thing is very

interesting right like okay let's say preede rounds 10 million valuation 2 million the market says Turks are very expensive I agree I mean stumble is a very expensive city so like plus supply and demand obviously right we make unicorns but okay if the investor obviously the the Vietnamese regulation like you can't directly invest and like there's this stuff but one company will crack that then you know the rest will Hello. If you are going to invest a million and those guys hire 200 people and then it's just a you buy a factor, you don't even buy talent. Just
then it's a mathematics game.
Yeah.
I'm like who makes more production? Add AI on top.
I don't know. I don't have the answer. Plus China. So tough times are coming. I guess
every year there is something which is you know tough it's tough times it's uh

it's there was covid then it was just AI is coming then you know whatever it's UA is dead everything is dead and it's kind of survival way iOS what what not so come on
that the game itself is the the survival game yeah tough
what so and but the thing is so everybody wants to talk to to Turkish companies and you you have the conf you have the conference in in Turkey. So I mean who who is coming and you know what kind of talks are should be you know should should be should be attending and tell us more
since this is no podcast right
exactly yeah I mean
I will I will not okay so
so definitely not all the companies are coming starting with their dream
I think that's public information now everybody knows
yeah exactly
they don't I don't know. Exream people can come. So, uh that that's possible.

More than welcome.
Yeah.
Pretty much we had like five six companies except those five six companies not every year but uh like except these five six companies we had almost all the companies coming. The thing about the conference attendance this is a very big conference. It is the biggest in Turkey. depends how you draw the map. It is also very big in until Gamescom probably. It is very business savvy. So we have a lot of investors coming. So that attracts a lot of founders as well. And because a lot of founders are coming, I tried to put the the content where they it will be useful. You guys are coming. Thank you so much. Yakob with the four years next two your first. This is the 50th anniversary. That's good. You are coming on.
Right time.
Right time. In the deep down I always try to secretly uh promote the self-publishing part because I know like

eventually this will lead to it. Grand game CEO is uh coming but one game Han Reena mentioned that she's coming and so on. We have our regular people coming Fortune Mine Spectra Vertigo
nice
these these guys are coming. So out of top 10 15 maybe we have like 80% of the studios coming in COO of Loom is coming owner. So we like my goal is to at least have one representative from each company right inside event not outside because how I also designed the event is that it is efficient enough so you don't have to do this hotel hopping.
It's annoying.
That's very important.
Yeah we all been there. I try to make this executive lounge nice. Put some food, there's coffee, the boots, like in 2 minutes you can finish all the boots, you know, like sessions, everything. But of course, this is the fifth year. I still don't know how I started this event. [laughter] I question myself every day with my own

money, no investor, no co-founder. I mean, 80% of the Turks are coming this year. We added mobile apps as well. Habik's CTO is going to speak. We had an AI mobile summit in June just to attract some audience from the apps because that's also booming right now.
Yeah.
Yeah. And they want our knowhow. We know that quite well.
Yeah.
Yeah. So your right audience is there for sure.
We have a very big indie area this year. We have two floors. So business expo and games expo and I also like I separated those and we invited all the top publishers and top founders from uh the PC liars by founders is going to come and speak that cross I don't 10 million plus something like that. So I try to bring everyone in Turkey. I wish the founders bring their teams as well right so they can you know learn and so but uh
yeah it's
step by step man step by step [laughter]

the fifth year
considering the industry that I I started modeling in 2015 but I didn't know what I'm doing back then
so 2020 so last five years is what we call it Turkish games industry basically so it's still really new but um I call it house of Turks because yeah this is the event where you can find most of the
uh Turkish founders like
I of course look at general games industrial I don't have an agenda to just do the mobile of course the name moictum comes from my mobile times that's fine but uh I see the industry as a whole we have government officials coming you know investors coming PR media and coming so on yeah
on top of Turks
we have at least 20 companies from Vietnam So we made a lot of
very good
know you already.
Yeah.
I mean that's a problem. So like some some Turks bash me because of this like

why do you do event but I don't know I have I have to eat as well. We have I think 30 30 Chinese companies coming
even better.
Even better. So it is is like besides my event is stumble that week especially the the side event start from u 4th of October and my event is seven and 8 October
I think this year we will have like 60% international and then 40% Turkey it was the other way around
last time I mean maybe your audience also attended some of my mixers globally we had the foreign games come
years I tried to bring the global audience Please stumble so the Turks can learn. Now the situation has changed and now the world is coming to watch
to watch you and learn from you. Yes.
Honestly like it's it's just growth centers because only thing that's growing is Turkey, China and Vietnam. Honestly, [laughter] nothing else is growing
and and they don't they don't like to speak that much like Rotate Lab CEO is

uh Abdul Raman a very good friend of mine. He's going to speak he has two sessions actually.
Oh great games. He sold two games to you know like epin 150 million plus like 2 3 years ago like a lot of good founders are coming the team with some case unico they're coming with 11 11 people you know it's a it's a good event not I'm not saying I'm the organizer but it brings a very different diversity of different nations a lot of Europe as well now middle east because there's also a lot of things going on there right and content wise we have business stage for the investment you know investors and founders and mobile stage this is where you'll speak it's more like monetization web shop it's very hot topic obviously UA you know um product of data we had four stages now we merged to two bit like two three in total

because yeah everyone likes to just eat and drink and talk so in our mobile stage we have apps and games together so that's called it's mobile. So yes, in summary, I try to bring all the Turks and then rest of the if you're doing something in mobile, definitely it's not an event you shouldn't like you should miss. Yeah, you definitely should be here like no no other way really to be anywhere else.
Okay. By the way, one one curious question. Anybody from Tail World's coming? Because I know this is the biggest PC game in Turkey and my favorite one.
I mean, every year I try so maybe this year.
Yeah. M if you don't know this is a game that made like 400 500 plus mil like one and two
I had like 200 hours when I was [laughter]
I mean yeah we we invite them every year I think before they were saying it's too mobile focus but now we we PC
I don't know so many years I couldn't bring too many founders now they're pretty much coming it is a like once a week so once a year event that we should all come and then say hi to each other

so maybe this We'll see.
Nice. Yeah, we are looking forward and also like the listeners, you you heard everybody important is coming. We have so much to learn and also you know if you want to stay two and a half steps ahead of the industry, you should come as well. You should come as well. So looking forward to seeing you all. any kind of in like special invitation for the two and a half gamers audience but one from you or we wrap it up. Last words.
Last any last words before?
Of course. Of course. You had you had the discount codes. You have a couple of free tickets, you know, so like your audience can reach out to you and then uh because like
amazing.
I mean besides me being an event organizer, I try to make this place uh that okay, we come, we learn, we grow and eventually like I need vendors to make money so they can sponsor me, right? So that
to be honest, this is no

No No podcast.
Yeah. you need to eat as well. So it's it's fine. Yeah. [laughter]
So if like essentially the game studios have to do good and I think I made like at least one event um where you can you know get the network, learn things, make more money, pay to vendors so vendors come and uh pay me more. So this is the cycle. So hopefully we'll see all your audience in
Amazing Banan. Thank you very much for coming for sharing all the all the information about Turkey about Mobiktum. And guys,
see you all next week in there. See you all in there.
Take care.
Cheers. Bye.
Bye.
Bye.