What are the ins and outs of running an FEC in Turkey? Ian Donegan spoke to Akif Özak, operator of Magic World, to find out
MAGIC World is an FEC in Trabzon, a small city on the coast of the Black Sea in Turkey. It is a city bathed in cultural history. Located on the historical Silk Road, it became a melting pot for religions, languages and culture for centuries and a trade gateway to Persia, but there are relatively few entertainment facilities in the city and particularly few aimed at younger children. There are a handful of shopping centres and some restaurants but nothing that kids would find particularly interesting. This presented a very clear niche for Akif Özak, who opened Magic World there. He set the business up with a number of friends who could see the benefit of the site and it opened in 2009. Most of the machines were redemption and video games when it first opened. Due to the complete lack of competition, Özak said that demand for the site was very high from the beginning. The venture proved such a success that, in 2017, Özak opened a second site in the country’s largest city, Istanbul. While the first branch was made up mostly of video redemption games, some market research before moving to Istanbul revealed that people’s interest in video games has decreased somewhat when compared with physical attractions like climbing walls, rope courses and laser tag.
