Zeybekci emphasized that the gaming industry is Turkey’s unsung hero, “Just like the game heroes, developers are real life heroes. They have exported such amount of digital goods that I couldn’t believe when I first heard about it. We have reached $500 million of export figure solely in gaming in 2016. As for 2017, we are expecting more from them.

#Türkiye Oyun Geliştiricileri Derneği’ni ziyaretimde,Türk gençlerinin akıl teriyle üreterek dış ticaretimize yüz milyonlarca dolarlık katma değer sağladığı bilgisayar oyunlarını bizzat oynadım. Oyun yazılım sektörümüze yönelik Bakanlık desteklerimiz sürecek @togedtr pic.twitter.com/RM84QZwasO — Nihat Zeybekci ?? (@ZeybekciNihat) 16 Kasım 2017

“During my visit to the Game Developers Association of Turkey (TOGED), I personally played the computer games that Turkish youth created which added hundreds of millions of dollar value to our foreign trade. As the Ministry, we’ll keep supporting software development.” Minister tweeted after his visit.

Marketing support up to 200K dollars per game

“The gaming market in our country was 464 million dollars in 2015 and 755 million dollars in 2016. We are the 16th in the world. To support the local industry, we cover 50% of cost of marketing expenses up to $200,000. We provide up to $100,000 to gaming companies to cover their costs of store commissions. We also aid the companies up to $50,000 yearly for engineer salaries. We also believe that some of these gaming companies should be in Turquality program (world’s first state supported brand creation and marketing platform). We can provide better support there” he proclaimed.

“They produce an incredible value with a small number of employees”

Minister Zeybekci also tried the games developed by the local studios in Ankara. One of the titles was MoBu, developed by Panteon, one of the launch titles of AppleTV. Also he was very interested in IsVille, a serious game from Pixofun.

Minister Zeybekci also played a siege scenario in Tale Worlds’ Mount & Blade: Warband, and got information about the Bannerlord, the new installment in the series. Mount & Blade is the most successful game ever came out from Turkey, with 7 million+ downloads to date.

Zeybekci said that a company that exports $100 million with a single game could produce an incredible added value with a small group, instead of employing thousands of people. “Just like how they insisted me to play their games now, we also insist them to develop good games and become world giants ” he added.