Joni Lappalainen on Elite Game Developers

When interviewing game developers from Turkey, they tell a different side to the story: "It has grown a lot in the past few years. But to be honest, the purchasing power here has dropped heavily, and salaries didn’t keep up with inflation. So many developers and creatives started making their own games to earn in dollars instead of giving their all to companies that don't give much to them. Also unemployment has increased a lot, and many people have started to see making games at home as a way to earn quick money. Also Turkish people like to try and support Turkish made stuff so since 2.8 million Turkish players are on Steam, it became a good market. Which led to a wave of new indie games and investments. On the workforce side, Turkish organizational culture often expects overtime without extra pay, so people are used to working long hours, which makes it cheaper for investors while getting full dedication. Normally Finland has the best tax rate, but for indies here, if you present your game as a "project" few times a year, taxes can drop close to 0%, so investors encourage indies to stay in technoparks. Even the biggest mobile companies that earn millions of dollars annually, tend to abuse the system. If you ask others "formally", they would probably talk about the government investments, new education system and creative workforce etc. but to be honest these were the main fuel for growth...."