Pile Up! We Talked to Catoptric Games, Publisher of Toy Shire

There are not many names that come to mind when it comes to computer game publishing in Turkey. Catoptric Games, on the other hand, is a team that has stepped into the sector by realizing this gap and stands out with the success of the games they have published, even though it has been a very short time since their establishment. With the contributions of Kristal Piksel and Paycell, we sat down with Volkan Bozkaya from Catoptric Games and chatted a little about what it is like to be a PC game Publisher in Turkey.

Catoptric Games Interview

Welcome Volkan, here are Toy Shire, Castle of Alchemist and the youngest Crystal Pixel winner, Pile Up! You are here representing Catoptric Games, the publisher of games such as. You can start by telling us a little about yourself.

Volcano: Hello, I am Volkan Bozkaya. In fact, I had no education or experience in the game industry in my background. I studied Control Automation Engineering at ITU and worked as an engineer for 7 years. But I have an entrepreneurial personality, engineering did not suit me. Later, while I was doing my master’s degree at Bahçeşehir University, I met the Game Design Department and wrote my thesis on the marketing of hyper-casual games from the perspective of a Publisher. At that time, I met with many local and foreign CEOs and added their ideas to my thesis, and this was my first step into the gaming industry.

So how did you transition from this hyper-casual conversation to Catoptric? Who founded it and for what purpose did you come up with it? What was Catoptric and how did it come to this day?

Volcano: I met my current partners while doing research on the sector. They were also working in the e-sports industry at that time, but they were more interested in computer games than e-sports. The story actually begins with the non-profit Next Game Startup event, which was held in order not to remain idle and to help the industry a little when all events were suspended during the pandemic period. Afterwards, the teams that received investment through these events come back to them and ask, can we continue to work with you somehow?

I joined the team around that time. We realized that there was both a lack of experience in computer game development and a lack of a Publisher in Turkey. After that, we started the process of incorporation from a non-profit organization. With the game jams we organized under the name “Next in Game”, we supported the production and publishing stages of 10-15 games in 1.5 years and gained knowledge about publishing. And then last summer we released our first game, Castle of Alchemist, Pile Up!, which was developed at our own event. This summer, we finally published Toy Shire, which was also released from our event.

So how does the communication between the publisher and the game developer happen? How do you decide which games to publish?

Volcano: First of all, we determined a genre for ourselves. In the style I call “ponchik”; For example, games that are relaxing, colorful and appeal to everyone. We review nearly 200 games per month internationally. We analyze which of these games are promising and how much revenue they can generate, and then pass this data through the algorithm to determine.

For example, there are many different people in our team. Both those who are directly involved with the gaming industry and those who occasionally give up Fifa are trying these games. Well, if you can make the guy playing Fifa play the home improvement game for more than 15 minutes, then this game will work.

Accordingly, we make offers to developers. By the way, one of the important points for us in this offer is that the developers receive most of the game’s revenue and protect the IP rights of their own products. Unfortunately, not being able to communicate via Discord is making it very difficult for us in this process.

We talked a little about the fact that there are very few PC publishers in Turkey. Do you think one of the reasons for this may be that there is a lack of trust in publishers?

Volcano: Definitely possible, naturally, at the end of the day, the developer puts in a lot of effort and no one wants to give a piece of that effort to someone else for no reason. Therefore, there is inevitably a tension between the developer and the publisher. For example, among the teams we work with, there are people who have never seen a contract in their lives, and trust issues may arise in these processes. This situation becomes more prominent especially in international agreements.

At this point, it is the duty of both the publisher and the developer to create mutual trust. Just as we see that sparkle in developers, developers also need to be aware of what we can do as a publisher and the risks we take. For example, in the contracts we make with developers, we do not interfere with the release time of the game or impose penalties on the developers of games that sell less than a certain number or fail to be released.

We attach importance to developers being aware of all our expenses. Even if we reduce the normal fee of an advertising project to 5%, we ask first, share the invoice and get approval.

But equally, it is important for us that the developer has realistic expectations about the development process and performance of their games.

Pile Up! As a publisher, you also took home an award from Kristal Pixel in 2024. Toy Shire and Castle of Alchemist are also very successful games. As a publisher that has made it 3 out of 3, can you talk about the future of Catoptric Games?

Volcano: Actually, it’s only been a year since Catoptric was founded, and we have released these three games since the summer of last year. In the first quarter of next year, our food-themed games “The Chef’s Shift” and “Ominous Stew” and “The August Before”, an Unpacking-like game from Abbancı developers, will be released.

Do you also provide post-release support for your games that have been released so far?

Volcano: We can divide the sales of games into two periods, before and after their release. Our main goals are to advertise before release, make the Steam page attractive and collect Wishlists. After the game is released, our biggest job is to plan sales, because the majority of sales come during discount periods. Apart from that, there are other issues that need to be taken into consideration, such as participating in different events and taking advantage of Bundle opportunities. We also provide follow-up of these.

We know that you work with foreign teams when it comes to the games you publish. So, does Catoptric Games have any plans to go abroad?

Volcano: Of course, we may have the idea of ​​opening an office abroad, but this is something that is still in the thought phase. It would be a development that would allow developers working with us to benefit from the incentives that different countries provide to games and developers.