# Sobee (2000 – 2018)

- URL: https://girisimcikafasi.com/en/startup-graveyard/sobee/
- Sector: Gaming
- Country: Turkey
- Total funding: unknown
- Cause of closure: Acquired and shut down

## What did it do?

Sobee was a games studio founded in Istanbul in 2000 as Dinç İnteraktif by Mevlüt Dinç, who had worked in the UK games industry for 15 years; it took the name Sobee in 2004. It developed Dual Blades for the Game Boy Advance, İstanbul Kıyamet Vakti, the first Turkish MMORPG, and the online 11-a-side football game I Can Football. Its games were built on Actor, a game engine developed by Dinç.

## Why did it shut down?

Sobee was bought by Türk Telekom in 2009 and in 2013 merged with TTNET, losing its status as a company and becoming a department. According to Emre Kurttepeli, one of its first investors, the studio's ambitious, big-budget game did not prove very successful. According to Wikipedia, Türk Telekom's management decided to close the studio in June 2017 and all projects other than İstanbul Kıyamet Vakti were terminated. After the game's Karaköy expansion pack was released in March 2018, the studio closed completely. The founder's departure and the studio's transformation into an internal unit of a telecoms company narrowed its scope to develop as an independent games company (interpretation).

## The story

Mevlüt Dinç entered the games industry in the UK, where he had gone for a master's degree in 1983, and worked there for 15 years. After returning to Turkey, he founded Dinç İnteraktif in Istanbul in 2000; the company took the name Sobee in 2004. According to Fast Company Türkiye, Emre Kurttepeli, founder of the Turkish web portal Mynet, was among the studio's first investors, and it was his first start-up investment.

Sobee notched up many firsts for the Turkish games industry. Dual Blades, developed for the Game Boy Advance, became the first Turkish game on a Nintendo platform. Then came İstanbul Kıyamet Vakti, set entirely in Istanbul and Turkey's first home-grown massively multiplayer online role-playing game. In a 2010 interview with Webrazzi, Dinç said the game had more than 600,000 members and that the online football game I Can Football had reached more than 170,000 active users.

In 2009 Sobee was bought by Türk Telekom. Dinç stayed on for a while, then left to pursue new ventures. According to Wikipedia, in 2013 the studio merged with TTNET, losing its status as a company and becoming a department. Looking back, Kurttepeli says the ambitious, big-budget game did not prove very successful.

During its time as a department, the studio released an open beta of a new online role-playing game called Kader Mühürleri in 2016. But in June 2017 Türk Telekom's management decided to close the studio. All projects other than İstanbul Kıyamet Vakti were terminated, and after the game's Karaköy expansion pack was released in March 2018, the studio closed completely.

Sobee's story shows both the courage and the limits of the pioneering era of game development in Turkey. The studio set out to prove that world-class games could be made with local talent, and achieved one of the first big breakthroughs. But under the roof of a telecoms company, the game's fate passed out of the hands of the creative team and into those of corporate priorities. Today, as Turkey's big games companies achieve global success in mobile, Sobee is remembered as the first stop on that journey.

## Lessons

- If you sell your studio to a company outside gaming, creative decisions become tied to that company's priorities.
- Building your own game engine is an advantage, but if the team that built it leaves, technical debt piles up fast.
- A big-budget first game is a risk that takes a long time to pay back in a small market.

## Sources

- [Sobee](https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobee)
- [The big game](https://fastcompany.com.tr/teknoloji/buyuk-oyun/)
- [Interview: talking about Turkey's games market with Mevlüt Dinç](https://webrazzi.com/2010/03/26/roportaj-mevlut-dinc-ile-turkiye-oyun-pazarini-konustuk/)