The digital indicators show the continued growth of the electronic games industry in Turkey, which statistics indicate that it ranks first in the region and 16 in the global market, which is about $ 110 billion.

The annual growth of the electronic games sector in Turkey is estimated at about 7%, and its annual exports reach one billion dollars distributed over a number of technological sectors, including 200 million dollars of games on smartphones, while the number of games produced in Turkey exceeds 35 million games, according to statistics. 2019 year.

Digital companies and programmers are making great efforts to preserve the position of the Turkish electronic games industry, which also occupies an advanced position in the field of entrepreneurship through various educational and training activities, while programmers confirm that this activity has recently doubled, taking advantage of the trend of digitalization that prevailed with the spread of the Corona pandemic.

Despite the impact of the coronavirus pandemic in some industries in a negative way, the Turkish gaming industry has remained in a good position, and even improved, as the data indicates, due to the increase in the number of active users, the times they spend playing games at their homes, and the daily revenues that rose during the epidemic, especially as programmers The Turks have made a rapid switch to the practice of design, implementation, production and marketing from within the home with the advent of the pandemic.

Exponential growth

According to the Turkish Electronic Games Developers Association (TOGED), the production of electronic games began in the 1990s through small businesses carried out by a few companies, which expanded and increased in number over the next two decades.

Ozgur Karayalçın, vice president of the association and director of business development at the Turkish company VL Media, says that the production of electronic games expanded with the opening of the Turkish Games Technology Center or TEKNEKANT in 2008, and his private companies flourished in Ankara. And Istanbul after 2010 is benefiting from the development of smart phone technologies.

Karayalçın explains that Turkish companies were initially producing electronic games and their accessories and improvements, and were unable to produce integrated software gaming devices due to their need for large staff and high financial budgets before the development of mobile games that required shorter time and less financial needs for production, which expanded the Turkish production capacity. Since 2010.

The Turkish official says to Al-Jazeera Net that many companies specializing in the manufacture of mobile games have been established in Turkey, including the mid-core games, which have contributed to the growth of the global telephone industries and the emergence of major pioneering companies in these Industry.

He believes that Turkey has succeeded in entering the group of the best countries in the world in the field of games industry, such as the United States of America, China, South Korea, Germany, Britain and France, and that it has become an attractive destination for investors in this field.

Jan Archelby, Managing Partner, Digitoy Games (Al Jazeera)

Support and entrepreneurship

The Games Developers Association was established in Turkey in 2014, and in 2016 the Turkish Games Developers Association bore a title that represents the brand of Turkish products locally and internationally, and it now includes - according to Karayalçın - 40 members of companies whose exports exceeded one billion dollars in 2018.

Karayalachin says that the federation has received large government support since 2015 and has also received important support in the field of technical support through the Ministry of Trade, considering the financial support as one of the basic needs for the growth of the electronic games industry.

At the same time, he notes that the limited human resources of game designers and producers and developers of software engineers represents the biggest challenge for game makers, especially for startups.

Today, the federation is working to launch a broad educational program with the support of the Ankara Development Agency and through the "Technoknet" Foundation, which considers the electronic games industry one of its most important components. The program aims to raise the productivity of game industry companies in Ankara by educating and training new game developers and building pioneer platforms that Bring them together.

For his part, Jan Archelby, managing partner at Digitoy Games, believes that the high percentage of young people in Turkey gives the gaming industry a great potential by creating and supporting many startups every year by taking advantage of the main incentives provided by the government.

Archhelby says - to Al Jazeera Net - that the technological education programs provided by universities provide opportunities for the growth of gaming studios very quickly, which contributes to solving the problems of time it takes to form work development teams caused by the lack of qualified human resources.

According to official data, major football clubs such as Besiktas and Galatasaray have established e-sports teams, while all Turkish clubs are expected to add these teams to their sports during the next decade.

Ozgur Karayalçın, Vice President of the Turkish Games Developers Association (Al Jazeera)

Mechanisms of action

Experts in the electronic games sector explain that the production development lines are similar in this sector in general features, but they differ according to the type of game, which helps in organizing the level of work by knowing everyone the basics of what they need to present and when.

Archhelby says - to Al Jazeera Net - that the first level of work in the production of electronic games is the pre-production stage, so every project begins with the same critical questions:

- What is the game?

- Who is the audience?

What is the state of the market in relation to the level of competition?

On which platform will it be posted?

What is the budget and return on investment?

What is the business model of the game?

(Is it free to play, or paid? Etc.).

Then the prototyping process begins, to facilitate in-depth evaluation and give the development team an opportunity to verify whether there is any technical challenge commensurate with the development sources before determining the hypothetical date when the product will see the light.

The second level is production that takes the longest time and is, according to Archhelby, the mechanics of game design, creation of the user interface, development of custom tools, implementation of algorithms, etc.

Archhelby believes that the production process of the real game begins with the third and final stage, which is the post-production phase that includes bug fixes and updates aimed at increasing audience participation, analyzing user behavior, examining levels of the game and taking measures to monetize it.

Arabic interaction

In addition to the large size of the electronic games industry in Turkey, many Arab companies are active in this sector. Indeed, some games produced by Arab programmers companies have achieved record levels and topped the local electronic games market, recording millions of dollars in profits, such as the game "Traffic Tour". Produced by Wolves Interactive, which has 45 million subscribers.

A platform for developing me (6wrni), which is based in Istanbul, has also appeared in Turkey for its activities, and was classified as the best Arab platform for teaching game development after the number of beneficiaries reached a quarter of a million students.

Games developer Osama Deeb (Al Jazeera)

Arab electronic game programmers in Turkey are deeply involved in development and entrepreneurship activities in the Arab world, according to Games developer Osama Deeb, who is currently supervising the "First Palestine Games Development Competition" project.

Deeb says to Al-Jazeera Net that the project was launched as an initiative by the Turkish Youth Capacity Development Foundation with the aim of encouraging Palestinian developers and enabling them to play games that serve the Palestinian cause from a national and value perspective, as part of the foundation’s activities concerned with the knowledge and skill development of Palestinian youth.

Deeb affirms that the games industry has become a whole sector that enjoys interest like all other investment sectors, and that large companies are competing to adopt special departments for games in their companies, explaining that organizing this sector has become an urgent need for any pioneering work to keep pace with the great demand for it.