Social gaming has turned the world on its head, making networks like Facebook mere hubs for gaming interaction, and driving monetization and advertising trends into a new era.  There are several companies that have been able to take advantage of this emerging market, but on a global scale, very few have grown as quickly as Peak Games. 

The social game developer was founded by Sidar Sahin a mere six months ago, and is already boasting 10 million monthly users.  It’s titles include Okey, Poker Star and Petiler, along with a handful of other titles you’re not likely to recognize or be able to easily pronounce.  Sahin hails from Turkey, and his company has established quite a foothold in his local market.  Peak Games has targeted the MENA (Middle East North Africa) area with a vengance, creating culturally-specific games that leverage a popular pastime.

“Peak Games demonstrates that the social gaming market is truly a global one,” said Michael Pachter, analyst for Wedbush Morgan Securities. “Companies like Zynga and Nexon dominate in their markets because they fundamentally understand their customers and know how to create culturally-relevant content. I think Peak Games has done the same thing for Turkey and MENA and arguably already owns those markets.”

It’s a method we’ve seen developing since before the days of Friendster, which once revamped its business by focusing on social games in the Asian-Pacific regions.  Companies like TinierMe and Peak Games recognize the gap left by broad developers such as Zynga, appealing to the local population and their heavily ingrained social interactions.  It’s a pattern that’s already been adopted by mobile marketing companies, though localized targeting in this manner still has a penchant for businesses, not gamers.

With such rapid uptake and speedy growth, however, it’s difficult to imagine Peak Games being able to apply this methodology across other geographic areas.  Such tactics failed for MySpace when it went global, and even Facebook has remained relatively generic in its localized launches across the globe.  But with $5 million in fresh funding from Earlybird Venture Capital, Peak Games has no intention of slowing down.  It’s not the US market they’re after, but these emerging markets defined by cultural address.

To this end, Peak Games is steeped in business analytics, realizing early on that behavioral insight is core to its company.  To have a successful gaming company, you need good games, great marketing, and business intelligence.  Bringing BI research in-house was an appropriate change Peak Games made within two months of launching, making it a vital contribution to game development as well as monetization.

Of course, business intelligence is an important aspect of big data trends for growing companies, and it’s an ongoing development we’ve seen applied to several types of businesses, from mobile advertising to SaaS products.  BI was a going theme at the SAP Sapphire event last week, harping on the imposing position analytics will create for businesses in the future.  Driving business decisions, BI can ease the processes around feature updates, marketing campaigns and beyond.  For Peak Games, it’s the most important aspect of understanding its consumers, and that’s something this game developer has been able to take all the way to the bank.