Türkiye’s gaming sector has experienced explosive growth over the past decade, both in terms of gamers and economic value.
In fact, according to the 2023 Türkiye Game Market report, Türkiye had over 47 million active gamers, with women accounting for 45% of players.
Despite economic turbulence, industry revenue has continued to rise; Gaming in Türkiye estimates the market was worth $580 million in 2023, while mobile games alone generated $315 million.
Analysts project sustained growth; Newzoo and Statista forecast that mobile games revenue will climb from US $356 million in 2024 to US $444 million by 2027.
To capitalize on this lucrative market, English alone is not enough. After all, the EF English Proficiency Index ranks Türkiye 71st. The lack of English fluency is reflected on Steam, where Turkish is among the top 15 most‑used languages.
Numbers alone don’t paint the full picture. When Cyberpunk 2077 mistranslated a quote from Atatürk, Turkish players were quick to protest until the publisher apologized (consider this thread to assess the full scope of gamers’ feelings about the issue).
For these reasons, you can’t afford to overlook quality Turkish localization.
As such, this article has two goals: helping you understand both the significant value of the Turkish market and the unique challenges involved in localizing for it.
What is Turkish?
Turkish (Türkçe) is a Turkic language belonging to the Oghuz branch. It uses a Latin‑based alphabet introduced after the 1928 language reforms; the script includes several diacritics (Ç, Ğ, İ, Ö, Ş, Ü).
The language is agglutinative, meaning that suffixes are attached to word stems to convey grammar and meaning. As a result, words can grow quite long, and sentences may be more compact or differ significantly from English.
For example, verbs typically appear at the end of sentences, and plural suffixes are not used after numerals (e.g., “5 cats” translates as “5 kedi,” not “5 kediler”).
How many people speak Turkish?
According to WorldData, over 82 million people speak Turkish natively. The majority reside in Türkiye, where it is spoken by about 87.6 % of the population.
On the other hand, Indiana University’s Central Eurasian Studies Department notes that Turkish is the native language of over 80 million people worldwide and that another 15 million speak it as a second language.
Outside of Türkiye, Turkish-speaking communities exist in Northern Cyprus, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Georgia, Greece, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Kosovo, as well as in Western Europe, the USA, Canada and Australia, owing to large diaspora populations. Germany alone has more than 2 million native Turkish speakers.
| Country | Native speakers | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Türkiye | 74.9 million | Predominant language and language of education, media and government. |
| Germany | 2.17 million | Second‑most spoken language in Germany; large immigrant community. |
| Iran | 2.17 million | Concentrated in north‑western provinces. |
| Syria | 1.80 million | Mostly among Turkmen communities. |
| Bulgaria | 528 thousand | Turkish is the largest minority language. |
| Others (e.g., France, Austria, Netherlands, Greece, etc.) | 10s to 100s of thousands | The language is maintained by diaspora communities. |
The Turkish diaspora represents an additional audience for localized games, especially since many Turkish immigrants have strong cultural ties to their language and may prefer Turkish‑language entertainment.
How many Turkish‑speaking gamers are there?
We estimate that there are around 50 million Turkish-speaking gamers worldwide today, of which about 45 million are in Türkiye.
This estimate is built by averaging multiple independent counts of gamers in Türkiye and then adding a conservative estimate for the Turkish-speaking diaspora.
Within Türkiye, several recent industry and market reports converge on around 45 million gamers:
- KOTRA’s survey data indicates that there were 47 million gamers in 2023.
- Anadolu Agency estimates that there were 44 million gamers in 2023 (mobile alone).
- Other agencies estimate these numbers at 42-44 million.
Outside of Türkiye, if we apply a conservative gamer penetration of roughly 40-50% to the Turkish diaspora (similar to Türkiye’s penetration of 55%, which falls in line with worldwide rates), we get an additional 5–7 million Turkish-speaking gamers abroad.
Adding that to the earlier estimate leads to a potential range of 48 to 52 million Turkish-speaking gamers worldwide.
Common Turkish game localization challenges
Translating and localizing a game into Turkish isn’t easy, especially when working from linguistically distinct source languages (e.g., Arabic to Chinese). These difficulties fall into two broad categories:
- Linguistic and technical nuances
- Cultural, religious, and political sensitivities
Technical nuances
Aside from ordinary mistranslations, you need to be particularly mindful of three characteristics of the Turkish language: special characters and diacritics; agglutinative structure and sentence length; and number–noun agreement.
Special characters and diacritics
Turkish uses letters such as Ç, Ğ, İ, Ö, Ş and Ü, as well as optional circumflexes (â, î, û) to disambiguate meaning in some words.
A mismatch between uppercase and lowercase forms can change meaning completely, e.g., “ılık” (“warm”) versus “ilik” (“marrow”). Dotted and dotless “I” are distinct letters:
- Lowercase “i,” becomes uppercase “İ”
- Lowercase “ı,” becomes uppercase “I.”
Developers must ensure that fonts, input methods and text-rendering systems support these forms and that case-conversion routines are locale-aware. Generic English-centric logic often breaks the Turkish “I” handling and can corrupt player names, chat, and search indexes.
Agglutinative structure and sentence length
Turkish appends suffixes to words to convey prepositions, plurals, possession and case. Consider the simple English phrase:
“Send energy to {player_name}”
It can’t be translated by merely replacing “to.” The dative suffix depends on the final vowel of the variable (e.g., “to Rodrigo” becomes “Rodrigo’ya,” and “to Elly” becomes “Elly’ye”), and further suffixes (for possession, case, etc.) may stack onto the same word.
This structure produces longer word forms, especially when variables are involved, so UI layouts should allow extra space compared with English.
For buttons and short labels, avoid tightly constrained layouts and give translators freedom to rephrase rather than mirroring English word order.
Number-noun agreement
Unlike English, Turkish does not pluralize nouns after numerals. Translators must ensure that strings like “3 lives left” become “3 can kaldı” rather than “3 canlar kaldı.”
The same rule applies to most in-game resources: “5 keys”, “10 potions” or “200 coins” will usually have a singular noun (“5 anahtar,” “10 iksir,” “200 altın”).
When designing string patterns that combine numbers and item names, avoid forcing an English-style plural and let the Turkish text keep the noun in its unmarked (singular) form.
Cultural and political sensitivities
Turkish culture is not monolithic. That’s even more true if you consider the Turkish diaspora. However, when focusing on players in Türkiye itself, some recurring themes are visible in both social norms and regulation, and these are worth respecting in game content and marketing.
Religion
Islam plays a significant role in Turkish society, even though levels of personal religiosity vary widely. Games perceived as disrespecting religion or religious symbols have faced public backlash and official scrutiny.
For instance, in 2016, the government launched a website where players could report Islamophobic content in digital games. Turkish law also criminalizes open insults against religious values under Article 216(3) of the Penal Code, which can be used against game content seen as blasphemous.
Commercially, concepts like “Black Friday” are often localized rather than translated word-for-word, partly because “black” associated with the main weekly prayer day (Friday) can be perceived as disrespectful.
Retailers tend to use names such as “Efsane Cuma” (“Legendary Friday”) or “Beklenen Cuma” (“Awaited Friday”) instead. Similar euphemistic or neutral rebranding usually work better in Turkish game events and promotions.
Politics and history
Sensitive topics include the Kurdish question and the Cyprus conflict. Any suggestion of an independent Kurdish state has long been treated as a political “red line” by Ankara and neighboring states, and maps or storylines implying territorial partition can draw scrutiny.
Likewise, the 1974 military action in Cyprus is officially framed as a “Cyprus Peace Operation” (Kıbrıs Barış Harekâtı), whereas terms like “invasion” are strongly contested in domestic discourse.
For globally released games, this does not mean such topics must never appear, but direct references, loaded terminology, or speculative alternate histories involving these issues should be handled cautiously and, where possible, with input from local reviewers.
National symbols
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Türkiye, occupies a unique, protected status. Law No. 5816 specifically criminalizes “crimes committed against Atatürk’s memory,” and has been used to prosecute perceived insults and justify blocking access to platforms hosting offending content.
A recent example in games is the Cyberpunk 2077 Turkish localization, where a crude rendition of an Atatürk quote triggered strong public reaction and an official apology and patch from the publisher.
Localization teams should therefore treat Atatürk’s name, portrait, quotations, as well as the Turkish flag and national anthem, with the same level of care they would apply to royals or founding figures in other highly sensitive markets: no irony, no parody, and careful double-checking of any adapted quotations.
Simple best practices for Turkish game localization
Many of the pitfalls described above can be avoided by bringing localization into the process early and following these key practices:
- Design for Turkish from the start.
Collaborate with developers during the design phase so placeholder variables can accommodate Turkish suffixation and UI elements have enough room for longer strings. This prevents clumsy workarounds where suffixes are split off or text is truncated on screen.
- Work with native experts.
Always partner with native Turkish linguists and in-country reviewers who are familiar with game terminology and player expectations. They are far more likely to catch awkward phrasing, register mismatches, or culturally tone-deaf choices before release.
- Plan voice-over carefully.
Where voice-over is involved, plan for the fact that Turkish lines may be slightly longer than their English equivalents. Adjust scripts and timing so actors can deliver natural sentences rather than rushed or oddly chopped dialogue. Using experienced Turkish voice actors and conducting at least one dedicated LQA (linguistic QA) pass with audio in context usually pays for itself in perceived quality.
Key takeaways
- The market opportunity is significant: With over 45 million gamers and a market valued at $580 million, Türkiye represents a passionate and underserved audience.
- Technical considerations are critical: Success requires accommodating Turkish’s agglutinative structure, special characters (İ, Ş, Ğ, etc.), and unique grammar rules like number-noun agreement.
- Cultural sensitivity matters: Developers must navigate religious sensitivities, political topics, and respect for national symbols (particularly anything involving Islam and Atatürk).
- Quality localization drives loyalty: When done right, Turkish localization doesn’t just expand revenue, it fosters dedicated gaming communities that appreciate being addressed authentically in their own language.
Work with experts: At Transphere, we specialize in delivering polished Turkish localizations that capture not just the words but the spirit of the language and its players. Our team of native linguists, cultural consultants, and technical experts ensures your game feels truly Turkish.