Publish at May 28 2018 Updated May 30 2023
African video game developers are part of a movement to amplify African myths, stories and traditions. They combine local culture with modernism to transmit their culture to the world. They set out to conquer the market, offering games aimed at African gamers, set in Africa and featuring local characters.
For example, Maliyo Games in Nigeria integrates cultural elements to appeal to local and diaspora gamers seeking original content.The studio has developed titles such as Mosquito Smasher and Okada Rider[i], which have been very well received in Nigeria. We wanted to use gaming as an engine to share African experiences with each other and with the rest of the world through African stories, sounds and characters," says Hugo Obi[ii], co-founder of the company. Some people take the best-selling games and adapt them into African characters, but our approach is to create games that are uniquely African," added his colleague Oluseye Soyode-Johnson.
In the same vein, Eyram Tawia, CEO of Leti Arts, urged African developers to create games that appeal to all 55 countries, 3,000 cultures and multiple languages of Africa. He sees video games as a tool for safeguarding local legends and stories, and representing them in a modern, attractive way. In other words, while creation must be inspired by local traditions, production must comply with international standards to facilitate distribution and expand the market. Indeed, not all African video game developers focus on a predominantly local audience.
.In South Africa, I-Imagine Interactive, founded in 1999 by Dan Wagner, has been the only studio authorized to develop video games for all platforms: PS3, Wii, Nintendo DS and Xbox 360. They also have titles on Android, Ios and J2ME platforms. The title of game developer Tasty Poison Games,
Pocket RPG, breaks out of the African mobile game scene and reaches gamers around the world. Applauded for its highly replayable action-RPG gameplay, Pocket RPG has been downloaded more than 10,000 times and received extremely positive reviews, according to data on Google Play Store. South African studio Celestial Games' Toxic Bunny sold over 150,000 copies internationally, compared with just 7,000 in the local market. In 2012, an HD version was developed, and a version for the Sony PS Vita console followed in 2013. Studio Slightly Mad has collaborated with Electronic Arts on Need For Speed: Shift, as well as a number of other international-standard titles such as Shift 2: Unleashed, Test Drive: Ferrari Racing Legends and Project CARS. Leti Arts' Ananse was nominated by an international jury of experts at the World Summit Award in 2013. Gamsole, a Nigerian studio founded by Abiola Elijah Olaniran, will record over a million downloads of its 5 games available on Windows Phone, in just 3 months.
.Finally, Morocco is home to a branch of one of the world's leading video game publishers, Ubisoft. This presence testifies to the potential and talent of African video game developers, who are gradually transcending national and regional barriers to conquer the global market.
This openness is necessary[1] since both Western and Asian countries have a long-standing videogame tradition and culture. On the 2017 ranking of the world's 100 largest countries, in terms of videogame revenues[iii], Africa is only represented by 7 countries: Egypt (41%), Nigeria (45%), South Africa (54%), Algeria (57%), Morocco (59%), Kenya (87%) and Tunisia (89%).
The African video game industry cannot go global without first conquering the local market. The main obstacles to the production, distribution and marketing of quality games are low incomes, poor Internet access and a lack of skilled labor. Without forgetting certain socio-cultural factors such as the way games are represented, which considerably limit the emergence of a genuine video game industry.
African populations, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, still consider video gaming not only as an unproductive and futile activity[2] but above all as a practice linked to childhood. In the imagination, video games are designed to entertain children, and adults shouldn't be interested in them. This portrayal of video games as a trivial activity and a source of dependence for the individual, who adopts a frivolous attitude in this practice[iv], constitutes, in our opinion, one of the most important aspects of the game;in our view, a major obstacle to the development of a video game culture in Africa[v]. Actors in the video game industry, education and culture need to work with communications professionals to raise awareness and even educate people about video games. Raising collective awareness of the recreational and symbolic potential of video games is a prerequisite for understanding, appropriating and building a strong video game culture on the continent.
Organizations promoting the African video game industry are rare on the continent. News about the industry is published here and in the general or specialized press. South Africa is the only country with dedicated communications bodies. The oldest, New Age Gaming (NAG) Online, has been operating since 1998 and has been broadcasting exclusively online since 2015[vi], with over 20,000 readers per month.
NAG Online also organizes « rAge », South Africa's largest fair dedicated to video games. As for the Festival de l’Electronique et du Jeu Vidéo d’Abidjan (FEJA), it is one of the rares, évènement of its kind, bringing together video game professionals and enthusiasts, mainly from 6 sub-Saharan African countries. The latest edition, from November 11 to 12, 2017, attracted nearly 50,000 participants from across Africa's gaming ecosystem, including those involved in animation, design or the sale of gaming-related technologies.
In Gabon, the « Libreville Gaming » is a competition, organized by Collectif Player Game, which brought together over 200 PlayStation players during a vacation tournament.
Such initiatives must be multiplied. Governments also need to get involved in initiating and then promoting the video game industry in Africa. In Cameroon, the Kiroo Games studio has received sponsorship from the Ministry of Arts and Culture. However, there is still a long way to go before a real video game industry emerges in Africa. The best is yet to come.
Notes
[1] Because the biggest consumer countries for video games are Asia and Europe - China, the USA, Japan, Germany, the UK, South Korea, France, Canada, Spain and Italy. URL : https://newzoo.com/insights/rankings/top-100-countries-by-game-revenues/
[2] Plato originally addressed the question of play (paidia), notably by contrasting it with the sérieux (spoudê), marking the nature of the activities denoted by these terms but also and above all on the objects concerned by these activities. Moreover, Plato gives play an important place in education, as a prerequisite for the acquisition of various sciences, such as mathematics.
[i] Okada Ride is the nickname for the motorcycles that happily and dangerously cruise the cities of Nigeria.
[ii] Diakité Kader, « L’essor de l’industrie africaine des jeux vidéo : 5 startups à suivre », Next-Afrique, 2014, http://www.nextafrique.com/l-essor-de-l-industrie-africaine-des-jeux-video-5-startups-captivantes-a-suivre
[iii] Newzoo, « Top Countries by Game Revenues », Newzoo (blog), accessed May 7, 2018, https://newzoo.com/insights/rankings/top-100-countries-by-game-revenues/
[iv] Gilles Brougère, Jouer/apprendre (Economica, 2005).
[v] Now the frivolity of play (Brougère, 2005) corresponds more closely to the lack of consequence of this activity on reality (Lint-Muguerza, 2015). And as Perriault (1994) shows, this playful dimension is not incompatible with learning. Video games have a socio-cognitive scope that appeals to an essentially inductive dynamic and does not oppose traditional pedagogy, but rather complements it.
Video games have a socio-cognitive scope that appeals to an essentially inductive dynamic and does not oppose traditional pedagogy, but rather complements it.
Video games have a socio-cognitive scope that appeals to an essentially inductive dynamic and does not oppose traditional pedagogy, but complements it.
[vi] Nastassja de la Guerre, « NAG Magazine Goes Completely Online: An End of an Era », PixelVulture, May 22, 2015, http://pixelvulture.com/2015/05/nag-magazine-goes-completely-online-an-end-of-an-era/
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