Computer Engineering Grad’s "Mount and Blade" Video Game Makes Top 100 List
BY EMİRHAN KAYA (IR/III)
The video game "Mount and Blade," which originated as an independent project created by Bilkent Computer Engineering graduate Armağan Yavuz, has reached sales of over 1 million and gained a place on "The Best 100 PC Games of All Time" list compiled by the leading computer and video game magazine PC Gamer.
The game, first introduced on a website founded by Mr. Yavuz, was released as a PC game in 2008. In 2010, the second version of the game came out under the name "Mount and Blade Warband"; release of the third version is expected by the end of 2012.
"Mount and Blade" is described as a single-player, action-oriented role-playing game taking place in a medieval land. Although the game project had initially been turned down by the computer game giants, "Mount and Blade" has attracted great interest in the Scandinavian countries and the US, and achieved revenues of $3 million so far.
Mr. Yavuz, with his wife İpek Yavuz the cofounder of the independent game development company TaleWorlds, described the video game sector as a huge market of $60 billion dominated by the US and South Korea, and added that there has been an increasing Facebook game market in Turkey with the support of TÜBİTAK and KOSGEB (Small and Medium Enterprises Development Organization).