Local video games sector inches toward $1 billion

ISTANBUL-Anadolu Agency

The video game sector’ size exceeded $150 billion in 2018 globally and its also developing in Turkey with an annual volume of $878 million, a board member of an IT association, Bilişim Grubu, has said.

“There are over 2.5 billion gamers in the world, their gaming expenses rose by 9.6 percent to reach $152.1 billion year-on-year in 2018,” Cengizhan Büyükyurt told Anadolu Agency.

He underlined that the video game sector was one of the fast-growing industries, and it had a huge potential.

Most of the income is received by free online games such as League of Legends and Overwatch, while Turkish companies also created online games which were known in the global area, he noted.

The Turkish gaming market’s value was $750 million in 2017, while it was $878 million last year and is expected to reach $970 million in 2019, he said.

Tansu Kendirli, the head of Game Developers, Designers, Producers and Publishers Association (Oyunder), highlighted: “The gaming industry is the only sector which reached an annual 10 percent growth rate in the last two decades.”

Touching on e-sports area, Kendirli said investors’ interest is raising day by day in this field, which is a new area was born in the gaming industry.

He noted Turkey, of which gaming industry attracts investors, has 35 million gamers and $1 billion gaming exports annually.

Erol Özmandıracı, a board member of Turkey’s E-sport Teams Union, noted that Turkey’s leading football clubs Beşiktaş, Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray have established e-sport teams.

Within 10 years, every sports club will establish an e-sport team in Turkey and also in the world, he said.

The E-sport Clubs Association will be more active in the global area especially in the Middle East and North Africa region, he said in a previous interview.

The GameX 2019, an international digital exhibition held at the start of the month, artacted foreign professionals to Istanbul.

The four-day expo, which is organized in Tüyap Fair and Exhibition Center, will also host panels by game developers, e-sport teams, game companies and business people.