Nikolov: SMS Payments Will Become Operational in Turkish Online Game Industry Very Soon

An IT congress was held by Turkish IT Foundation in Ankara late November, and during the congress a special section was assigned for online gaming. During this very special section, which contained workshops and match-makes comparing foreign companies and domestic ones, we had the chance to interview with some of the foreign online game producers and marketers visiting our country. One of them was Terry Nikolov who is a project manager at Gate2Shop. Gate2Shop is a company providing payment solutions for many game sites. You can find the video (at the bottom) and the transcript of our interview with Mr. Nikolov below:

Turk Internet: Hello Mr Nikolov. Why are you here in Turkey?

Terry Nikolov: I am here because I was invited to the special event which is held for the online gaming industry which I believe is developing pretty fast in Turkey. It is also one of the fastest growing industries in Europe. And Turkey is one of the engines for that industry.

Turk Internet: What kind of solutions are you presenting in Turkish market?

Terry Nikolov: We are providing billing solutions to the whole world. And in terms of Europe, we are providing credit card payments, direct debits, alternative payment solutions and I came here to Turkey to see what the market requires and what exactly has to be provided to that market.

Turk Internet: You know in Turkey we don’t make payments over Internet. We use credit cards but not things like paypal. What do you think about this?

Terry Nikolov: Yes I know. I believe that it is still too early for Turkish market to be mature enough for the credit and the debit cards but I am sure that eventually that will happen. In the meanwhile I am sure that in Turkey it is pretty popular the SMS payments especially for the online gaming industry and this is exactly what we have to get to be providing as soon as well.

Turk Internet: It is interesting. And I will ask you what kind of touches, I mean contacts did you make here during the event?

Terry Nikolov: During the event I met with some of the leaders in the MMO industry like Big Point, Chew Potato, Astrums, and these guys seemed I mean this companies seemed that they came to Turkey to visit you and then this means Turkey is definetly one the places that “you must be” when it comes to MMO industry and also “you must be here” when it comes to Facebook or MySpace let’s say because this is the fastest growing industry in Europe.

Turk Internet: And as my last question, I know you are from Bulgaria. Could you define us how is the market there in Bulgaria?

Terry Nikolov: It is still not mature enough like the European markets and it’s even not mature like the Turkish market. We don’t use credit cards for payments online, but of course there is SMS prevail. But this is something that is going to change as well.

Turk Internet: Thank you Mr Nikolov.

Terry Nikolov: You’re welcome.