Ex-Peak Games execs raise $5 million in funding for new studio Magic Games

Magic Games has raised over $5 million in seed funding. With that money, the newly formed mobile developer plans on bringing in more artists and developers to its Istanbul office, along with establishing a second office in Europe. 

Turkey has become a booming (if shady) game market for the hypercasual market ever since Zynga bought Peak Games back in 2020. It's not terribly surprising that former Peak staffers would found a new studio to get in on that success again, nor is it surprising they'd expand to the UK, one of the largest homes for game developers.

Magic was founded by Çağrı Öztürk, Rüya Çelikcan, and Mert Kasar, who all were previously executives at Toy Blast developer Peak Games. The trio aren't the only ex-Peak staffers to establish their own studios: former COO and co-founder Hakan Bas founded his own studio, Ace Games, in 2021. 

Leading the pack in seed funding was venture capital firm Makers Fund, which has previously invested in fellow mobile studio Dream Games (twice, actually). Magic's debut game will be a match-3 title that combines community features with multiplayer gaming, which Öztürk said would be an important factor in the developer's titles. 

"Our company builds around the belief that social interactions are the key to deepening and enriching our shared gameplay experience," he wrote in a press release. "Social features are integral to our development cycle as we work to build multiplayer games that anyone can enjoy.”

The combination of match-3, community, and multiplayer is what caught Makers' attention, said funding lead Curtis Urbanowicz on the deal. "Çağrı and his team have built world class games in this genre before, and we think the casual games market is going to love the fresh perspective that they’re bringing to this next chapter.”