Growth and the Limits of Producer Control in Türkiye’s Mobile Game Industry: A Platform Governance Perspective

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Erden A.

IConMIS-2026 ULUSLARARASI YÖNETİM BİLİŞİM SİSTEMLERİ KONGRESİ, Antalya, Türkiye, 15 - 17 Ekim 2026, ss.135, (Tam Metin Bildiri)

  • Yayın Türü: Bildiri / Tam Metin Bildiri
  • Basıldığı Şehir: Antalya
  • Basıldığı Ülke: Türkiye
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.135
  • Marmara Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

Mobile game development is a major, globally oriented Turkish production sector, yet its studios depend on app stores, engines and ad networks governed elsewhere. First, which production conditions did Türkiye's leading mobile studios change between 2016 and 2025, and who held the decision right over those they did not change? Second, where a platform owner and a court governed one platform, did improved commercial terms alter the court-ordered access restriction? This descriptive documentary case study draws on 38 convenience-sampled transactions, 60 public statements, 10 industry reports and 17 firm and policy documents. Nine structured comparisons (four firm trajectories, two platform-rule changes, one boundary case, one contextual, one post-period) separate changes in activity, ownership and infrastructural rules by who decided each. Gram Games, Peak, Rollic and Dream Games changed products, monetization, publisher coordination or financing; every sampled studio exit with an identifiable acquirer transferred ultimate control abroad. Authority over app-store, engine and access rules stayed with platform owners or public authorities. Apple's 2021 App Tracking Transparency (ATT) rule and Unity's 2023 per-install fee, never implemented, show exposure to external rules whose effects this design cannot isolate. Zynga's 2021 report of record Rollic results contradicts an immediate, uniform post-ATT downturn. For Roblox, the boundary case, its reported 8.5% rise in the cash rate paid for earned Robux (September 2025) coexisted with the August 2024 access restriction. We term this configuration double platform dependency: where participation requires corporate permission and territorial access to one platform, improved terms need not remove an access restriction. Linking game production research with information systems work on complementors and boundary resources, we distinguish producer growth, ownership change and infrastructural access by who can alter each. For studios and policymakers, subsidies, ownership choices and negotiated terms should match the authority able to change the binding constraint.