How Istanbul Won the Mobile Puzzle Wars (Ep. 29)

Mitch and Blake discuss the rise of the Istanbul gaming scene, which has exploded in the last 15 years and come to dominate the incredibly lucractive "match 3" mobile puzzle genre -- a genre which represents a significant percentage of global mobile game revenue. They discuss some of the important metrics that demonstrate just now important mobile game development in Istanbul has become -- not just to the global mobile games business, but to the nation of Türkiye itself, as a source of foreign currency and tax revenue.

In order to interrogate how Istanbul rose to dominate this genre, the hosts discuss the creation of Peak Games and the importance of Sidar Sahin and Rina Onur, two of Peak's founders and two important figures in the development of the Instanbul scene. They trace Peak's development through its sale to Zynga in 2020 for $1.8 billion. They discuss how Peak alumni were directly responsible for the formation of 65 new game studios, including Dream Games, which ultimately eclipses Peak as the most valuable game company in Istanbul.

The hosts turn to the four factors that contributed to the success of the Istanbul scene: dollar/euro currency leverage; local government subsidies; local talent -- both a source of talent specifically adept at the Match 3 genre as well as a magnet for Turkish tech talent broadly; and the distribution advantages that flowed from the choice to work in the globally-relevant Match 3 genre.

They conclude the episode with a look at the Dream Games transaction that cashed out investors and injected $1.25 billion of debt financing into the company. They then discuss some potential challenges to Istanbul's position in the future, and the overall durability of its current competitive advantages.