“I focused on localizing the game by providing best in class service to Turkish gamers,” Hasan said. When Hasan opened the Istanbul office in 2012, it became Riot’s sixth office. Now the company has over 4,000 employees with 20+ offices around the world. But he said, ‘If you're interested in the game, we’re hiring for Turkey right now.’”Īfter a lengthy interview process - something that certainly hasn’t changed at Riot in the following decade - Hasan joined Riot as the first employee in Turkey. But I was told Riot didn’t provide licenses, except for extraordinary circumstances. “I simply asked for a publishing license to bring LoL to Turkey. “I met Nicolo in 2011 as I was reading about Riot’s growing success,” Hasan said. But for Hasan, it was exactly the type of game he was interested in. Focused entirely on one free-to-play, PC-only title, League of Legends clashed with the traditional gaming model. But my heart was always in competitive PC games.”Īt the height of the console generation, Riot’s business model was a bit odd. We released the DS, the 3DS, and a bunch of great games. “I became the country manager for Nintendo back in what I call the golden age of Nintendo. “I found out Nintendo was opening a distribution office in Turkey,” Hasan said. In his search for what came next, he learned one of gaming’s most beloved brands was coming to Turkey. By 2005, the money dried up and Hasan’s startup closed its doors. From there, we partnered with World Cyber Games out of Korea who were organizing the earliest stages of esports.”Īt the time, the competitive games space was still niche. We distributed box games and ran some competitive servers in games like Unreal Tournament, Counter-Strike, and FIFA. “That was the goal of Avaturk, my first start up. “I wanted my career to be focused on leveling up the quality of life for Turkish gamers,” Hasan said. Tired of looking, he worked to provide the solution. But in 2003, he was one of the many Turkish gamers looking for a better experience. These days, he’s Riot’s VP of International where he focuses on building long lasting communities by localizing the player experience. Among the gamers on the hunt for the latest title was Hasan Colakoglu. In the early 2000’s Turkish players chased down bootleg copies of popular titles as big publishers and distributors ignored the passionate playerbase clamoring to play their games.
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