Game enthusiasts in Turkey spent over $850M in 2018

A total of $853 million was spent on the Turkish gaming market in 2018, up from some $810 million the previous year, a report by gaming and esports agency Gaming in Turkey revealed.

The Turkish Gaming Industry Report showed that about half of this figure, $400 million, stemmed from mobile games, up from $372.4 million in 2017, while PC and console games marked reached a volume of $453 million, up from $437.6 million in the previous year.

It also revealed that in the gaming market, with more than 30 million gamers, an average of $2.3 million a day was spent on games last year.

According to Turkish daily Habertürk, the average daily amount spent on PC and console games in Turkey is $1.2 million, while the total amount spent on mobile games is $1.1 million.

Given these figures announced for 2018, Turkey has remained 18th in the world gaming market, while it is the top gaming market in the Middle East region, followed by Saudi Arabia at $800 million and Iran at $600 million.

Looking to the mobile gaming market in a number basis, the most downloaded free mobile game in 2018 was Helix Jump, developed by French game developer Voodoo, while the most downloaded paid mobile game was "Hitman Sniper," produced by Japanese Sqare Enix. Card game 101 Okey, developed by Turkish developer Peak Games and later sold to U.S. gaming giant Zynga, topped the list of mobile games with the highest revenues in Turkey in 2018.

101 Okey's annual revenue surpassed $8.6 million, followed by Clash of Kings (Elex) at $5.5 million and by Lords Mobile (IGG) at $5.25 million. The total revenue of the top 10 mobile games in Turkey, which users spend the most money on, stood at $44 million.