10 studiosDirectoryChecked 2026-08-20Türkiye incentive programme

Game studios in Türkiye: who is here and what they built

Türkiye's game industry is built on mobile and one very large exception. Zynga alone spent about $2.22 billion buying three Istanbul studios. Dream Games, founded in 2019, was valued near $5 billion in 2025. TaleWorlds in Ankara has sold more than five million copies of a PC strategy game it spent a decade making.

By Tom HuseynzadeCo-founder, CyberScope Solutions

$2.22bnSpent by Zyngaon three Turkish studios in two years

~$5bnDream Games valuationin the 2025 CVC deal

5m+Bannerlord copies soldTaleWorlds, Ankara

350+Largest studio headcountDream Games, estimated

Türkiye refunds half of what a software company or game studio spends on advertising, app store commissions and hosting when it sells to customers abroad, and up to 70% when those customers are in one of twenty target markets. It is paid in cash, against invoices you have already settled. Try it with your own numbers.

What you spend a year on ads and platform fees $

Paid back in Türkiye $350,000 a year, in cash, at the 50% to 70% rate

See the full breakdown

01Which game studios are based in Türkiye?

Sorted by size, largest first. Tap the Founded or People columns to sort.

Studio	City	Founded	People
Dream GamesSole equity investor is CVC after the 2025 deal.	Istanbul	2019	350+
Zuuks GamesSimulation, not match three, and quietly one of the biggest here.	Istanbul	2011	230+
Peak GamesBought by Zynga in 2020 for $1.8 billion, the largest exit in Turkish tech.	Istanbul	2010	220+
Good Job GamesIndependent, and one of the few at this scale that has not sold.	Istanbul	2016	200+
TaleWorlds EntertainmentThe one big PC studio in a mobile industry. Bannerlord passed five million copies in 2025.	Ankara	2005	170+
Gram GamesBought by Zynga in 2018 for $250 million.	Istanbul	2012	160+
RollicZynga took 80% in 2020 for $168 million in cash.	Istanbul	2018	140+
Joygame PublishingPublisher rather than developer, and one of the oldest names here.	Istanbul	2010	120+
UDOThe largest studio outside Istanbul after TaleWorlds.	Ankara	2016	100+
Spyke GamesFounded by ex-Peak people, funded at seed by Playtika.	Istanbul	2021	80+

Headcounts are estimates compiled in September 2025 and companies count staff differently. source checked 2026-08-20

02The money that came in

Five events that made the rest of the industry pay attention.

2018Zynga buys Gram Games for $250 millionsource checked 2026-08-20
2020Zynga buys Peak Games for $1.8 billion, the largest exit Turkish tech has hadsource checked 2026-08-20
2020Zynga takes 80% of Rollic for $168 million in cash, with the rest to follow on profit targetssource checked 2026-08-20
2025CVC becomes sole equity investor in Dream Games in a deal raising about $2.5 billionsource checked 2026-08-20
2025Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord passes five million copies soldsource checked 2026-08-20

03Why do studios base themselves in Türkiye?

Three things made this cluster. Cheap, strong engineering talent coming out of the technical universities. A domestic market too small to build a business on, which pushed everyone toward global publishing from day one. And a run of exits that put money and experienced operators back into the same city.

Those exits put money and experienced people back into the same city. Spyke was founded by people who left Peak. Rollic was founded by people who had run growth at other studios. A team of six here can hire someone who ran user acquisition on a game that sold for a billion dollars, and that is worth more to them than any grant.

Software and games are treated as export industries in Türkiye. A studio selling to players abroad pays no corporate tax on that income, and gets between half and seventy percent of its advertising, hosting and platform fees paid back in cash. Foreign studios can use the same programme by setting up a Turkish company, which is the part most people outside the country have not caught up with.

Share of a marketing bill paid back

Türkiyenothing
Türkiye, standard rate50%
Türkiye, target-country rate70%

What Türkiye would pay back on your spending

Türkiye runs a government programme that refunds part of what a software company or game studio spends on reaching customers abroad. It covers advertising, app store and platform commissions, and hosting. The refund is paid in cash against invoices the company has already settled, so it does not depend on the company making a profit. The standard rate is 50%, and it rises to 70% when the customers being targeted are in one of the twenty countries on the Turkish Ministry of Trade's target list.

Put your own yearly figures in below. The rates and the annual caps come from the same file as our full calculator, and the total updates as you type.

Ads and player acquisition $ App store and platform commissions $ Hosting and servers $ Most of my customers are in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan or another of the twenty target-list countries, so the rate is 70% instead of 50%.

Back in cash, every year $0

Have us check this figure Open the full calculator, all 16 items

04Questions we get asked

Why is Turkish mobile gaming so strong specifically?

Match three and hyper-casual reward two things Türkiye has plenty of: cheap iteration and very good performance marketing. Studios here ship a prototype, buy a small amount of traffic, read the numbers and kill it in a week. That loop is expensive in London and affordable here, so teams run more of them.

Do foreign studios open here?

Yes, and it is more common than it looks. A Turkish company can be owned entirely by foreigners, the founders do not have to relocate, and the same export incentives apply. What the company does need is real activity here, meaning people actually doing the work.

Is Istanbul the only option?

It has the deepest hiring pool by a distance, but Ankara has TaleWorlds and UDO, and Izmir has a smaller cluster. Costs drop noticeably outside Istanbul while the incentive programme works exactly the same anywhere in the country.

Why a consultancy keeps a studio directory

CyberScope Solutions is an Istanbul consultancy that manages Türkiye's IT export incentive claims for software companies and game studios. We track where studios are because the question we are asked most often is who else has done this, and a list is a better answer than an assurance.

Every figure is sourced. Each number links to the page it came from and carries the date we last checked it.
We do the filing. Claims run through DYS, the ministry's own system, and we handle the evidence pack, the deadlines and the follow-up questions.
You find out early if it is not for you. The first call is thirty minutes and we will say plainly if your spend pattern does not suit the programme.

Turn that number into money

Send us the rough shape of your spend. You get back what it is worth, what setting it up involves, and how fast the first claim can go in. Companies already operating here treat this as routine, and the six month window means the clock is running on invoices you have already paid.

A reply from a person within one working day
No mailing list, no drip sequence
Thirty minutes, and you keep the numbers either way

05Where these numbers come from

About this page

This is general information about public funding and tax rules. It is not tax, legal or financial advice, and nothing here is an offer or a guarantee of any outcome. The figures come from the sources listed above and were correct on the dates shown beside them.

Rules change often and every company's position is different, so take advice from a qualified professional in the relevant country before acting on anything here. Support under any programme depends on eligibility and on approval by the authority that runs it. CyberScope Solutions accepts no liability for decisions taken on the basis of this page. The named author writes for the company in a professional capacity and carries no personal liability for its contents.

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