Tripledot’s Akin Babayigit: Hard Work Over Know-How, Rising Hubs & the AI Era

We sat down with Akin Babayigit, Co-Founder of Tripledot Studios and Managing Director at Arcadia Gaming Partners, for a wide-ranging conversation about what’s actually driving the next era of mobile gaming.

We covered the rise of new creative powerhouses like Turkey and China, the structural shifts AI is bringing to production and UA, how velocity is beating legacy playbooks, and and what it really takes to build global winning games in an industry where no one can predict them, only move fast enough to find them.

But first, the backdrop.
As Akin puts it, the market didn’t get harder because it failed, it got harder because it worked. Its success attracted more competition, more capital, and more noise. And studios today aren’t just competing with each other; they’re competing with TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and every other platform fighting for the same slice of human attention.

The landscape got louder and faster, and speed defines who gets to play.

From engineering to entertainment

Akin’s path into gaming wasn’t linear. Born and raised in Turkey, he moved to the U.S. at 16, studied engineering at Yale, and spent his early career at McKinsey, Skype and consulting for the UN.

But the gravitational pull of technology ( and eventually games ) was impossible to ignore. He joined Facebook in 2012, when the company had just 2,000 people, to help lead the Games Partnerships team in EMEA. Later, he became part of the small group that launched Audience Network, laying part of the infrastructure that would fuel the mobile gaming boom.

For Akin, gaming has always lived at the intersection of creativity and hard numbers: “It’s what happens when a hedge fund and a movie studio have a baby.”

Turkey, China & the velocity game

The gravitational pull of mobile gaming is shifting toward Turkey and China, two hubs where speed and execution define the playbook. In Turkey, a young, highly educated, and technically skilled workforce is pouring into gaming, bringing together strong storytelling instincts, technical capability, and a hustle-driven culture.

China adds another layer: massive scale and operational rigor. Across both markets, studios keep teams lean, move fast, and prioritize shipping over perfect planning.

This velocity compounds. It lets them test more ideas, discard weak ones early, and raise their chances of finding winners faster than the slower, more process-heavy studios in the West.

It’s not cost that gives them the edge, it’s culture. They cut the layers, skip the polish, and let speed and data do the work.

When speed meets intelligence

In Akin’s view, AI is a structural shift in how games get built, launched, and scaled.

Today, most studios are using AI for incremental efficiency gains: automating creative production, speeding up asset workflows, and improving the way teams operate with fewer people. That alone already changes how fast studios can move.

But that’s just the first wave. What’s coming next is a step-change, where AI moves beyond optimizing workflows and starts actively shaping the game itself: from concept ideation to level design, code generation, and end-to-end production loops.

For studios that already move fast, AI acts as an acceleration layer:
> Generating and stress-testing creative ideas earlier.
> Automating tedious UA and production tasks.
> Expanding what’s possible for small teams.

Where slower, legacy studios may see AI as disruption, fast operators see it as fuel.
“If you’re already fast, AI makes you faster. If you’re slow, AI won’t save you.”

Zero to one energy

Akin describes himself as a “zero-to-one guy at heart.”

After helping build Tripledot into one of the fastest-growing gaming companies in the world, he stepped away from operations, not because things weren’t working, but because the scale stage isn’t where his fire lives.

“If I’m not coming in ready to go to war every day, it’s better for everyone that I go build something new.”

For him, the early stage is the game. The chaos, the constraints, the speed at which decisions shape the DNA of a company, that’s where Akin thrives. And even while Tripledot was growing, he found ways to keep building. He co-founded Luna Labs, spinning it out of Tripledot, assembling a small team of trusted operators, and turning it into another success story.

That same builder instinct now powers his work with Arcadia Gaming Partners. He sees the industry less as a place of moonshot invention and more as a world of relentless iteration.

His thesis is simple: the most successful teams are often small units of builders who’ve learned the craft together inside the “universities” of gaming (Playtika, Peak Games, King, Supercell). They ship, they fail, they learn, and they do it again.

Arcadia steps in where ambition meets execution, and things start moving fast.

Wrap Up

The future of mobile gaming won’t be shaped by a single breakthrough idea or one perfect formula, because that doesn’t exist. As Akin bluntly puts it, nobody can predict hits. The only thing studios can control is how many shots they take, how fast they move, and how much they learn along the way.

The bar is higher than ever. A decade ago, studios competed mostly with each other. Today, they’re fighting for the same slice of attention as TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. The market matured.

In this new world, velocity is everything. It’s what gives emerging hubs like Turkey and China their edge. It’s why small, focused teams can outmaneuver big players. It’s also why AI is the engine. For the studios already built for speed, AI is what pours jet fuel on the fire.

And this is exactly where Akin’s zero-to-one energy kicks in. His career has always lived at the crossroads of creative chaos and disciplined execution, from shaping Facebook’s early gaming infrastructure to building Tripledot, spinning out Luna Labs, and now backing a new generation of founders through Arcadia.

His bet is simple: the next wave of global hits won’t come from bloated org charts or endless strategy decks. It will come from tight, battle-tested teams that know how to move fast, kill weak ideas early, and double down on what works.

He believes in compounding, fast cycles that turn small wins into something big.

The winners of tomorrow won’t be the ones who play it safe or move slow. They’ll be the ones who lean into the chaos early, build with speed, harness intelligence, and never stop iterating.