7 Comments
User's avatar
Jason Lovett's avatar

You forgot one important thing: cost differences. Turkish employees cost significantly less than European ones.

Expand full comment
Joakim Achren's avatar

That used to be the case, but now that so many unicorns companies have been created in Turkey, and massive amounts of foreign funding has been injected into the ecosystem, the salary expectations have risen significantly.

Expand full comment
Jason Lovett's avatar

Yes but you can’t deny that was the initial fueling for everything. I know this working first hand at Voodoo and Homa. As an American I had to accept a much lower salary to just get my foot in the door.

Now they’ve stripped away most of their studios and developers from the west to hire almost exclusively Turks. Not just a talent thing, I know having made my own top 10 games on the App Store lol. Was painfully difficult to compete because the price publishers paid per external studio was so low because of the Turkish market.

And now because of that period of cheapness, yes unicorns have taken off. But the low cost of labor was the fuel that fired it all in the first place.

Expand full comment
Jason Lovett's avatar

That said though, Turks do have that special blend like you mentioned. They’re avid gamers from birth and have just the right amount of business savvy, technical skills, creativity and market sensibilities (particularly to European / western audiences) as compared to other cheap labor centers like India or China which don’t have the “western taste” that is important when making design decisions

Expand full comment
morteza's avatar

china is not less than turkey

turkish developers are good at puzzle games but in massive games like genshin impact an AAA games like black myth : wukong, china is far better and stronger than turkey

Expand full comment
Jason Lovett's avatar

For sure as you point out different countries have different types of strengths in gaming

Expand full comment
Paolo's avatar

I submitted this post to a turkish colleague and I got another feedback. You probably should inform better.

For instance, when you say that founders stay until 22 is partly true. Usually they force also employees to stay until late. I heard of big names, the ones you celebrate in your post, and their toxic culture.

I suggest you to talk with employees of Peak, Dream games and so on to get better the bigger picture.

Expand full comment