Gnarly Game Studio
Mobile casual games with mass-market appeal.
| Date | Investors | Amount | Round |
|---|---|---|---|
| - | investor investor | €0.0 | round |
$65.0k Valuation: $650k | Seed | ||
| Total Funding | 000k | ||
Founded by Mehmet Gürdal, Ferhat Tepe, and Serkan Gürdal, Gnarly Game Studio is a Turkey-based game development company specializing in casual mobile games. The studio focuses on creating engaging games with mass-market appeal, combining expertise in both mid-core and volume-oriented casual games. The team's co-founders bring a blend of skills with Gürdal as the Game Designer, Tepe as the Game Developer, and Serkan Gürdal as the Game Artist.
In December 2020, the studio secured a seed investment of 500,000 TL at a 5 million TL valuation from WePlay Ventures. This funding was intended to scale their game "Cetchy," which was in beta testing in the Brazilian market at the time. The business model appears to be free-to-play, generating revenue through in-app purchases and advertisements. A partnership with publisher Homa has been instrumental in the studio's growth, leading to a significant increase in downloads, LTV (Lifetime Value), and retention for their titles. This collaboration helped optimize game difficulty, ad placement, and the in-game economy, contributing to the success of their games.
Gnarly Game Studio has produced several successful titles, including "Agent Hunt," which has over 85 million downloads, and "Frontline Heroes," with over 30 million downloads. Their collaboration with Homa on these two games resulted in a combined total of over 100 million downloads. The success of "Agent Hunt" was partly attributed to Homa's user acquisition campaigns and creative ad content, which helped it reach the top 8 in the US free games rankings in December 2023. The development of "Frontline Heroes" was significantly more efficient, with a 60% reduction in production time compared to "Agent Hunt," by leveraging existing systems from the previous game.
Keywords: mobile games, casual games, game development, free-to-play, in-app purchases, game design, user acquisition, mobile entertainment, game publishing, Agent Hunt, Frontline Heroes, WePlay Ventures, Homa, Android games, iOS games, Turkish game studio, gaming industry, mass market gaming, mobile advertising, game monetization