CLAUDE:
You’re listening to Limitless Africa, the podcast that looks at how Africa and America can work together for shared prosperity. It’s sponsored by the US Department of State and the Seenfire Foundation.
DIMPHO:
Hello I’m Dimpho Lekgeu
CLAUDE:
And I’m Claude Grunitzky.
DIMPHO:
On Limitless Africa this episode, America continues to dominate the video gaming industry.
CLAUDE:
But as developers and investors turn to other growing markets, can this be an opportunity for the continent?
DIMPHO:
And finally, how the combination of African and American talent is leading to a golden age of video gaming,
JAY SHAPIRO:
If I was an investor today. I run a venture capital fund, and I have to look at the gaming market globally when my team and I try to decide where to put my
dollars. For investors looking at Africa, there’s no doubt that the African continent is the number one place to do that from a growth opportunity perspective.
CLAUDE:
American video games have been some of the most iconic of all time.
Think Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Grand Theft Auto to name a few.
ESTHER APPIAH-FEI:
Hi, my name is Esther. I’m from Ghana, and I have been a video gamer since I was six years old. Now my Favorites will always be the Grand Theft Auto series. I have literally played it in all it’s variations, from Grand Theft Liberty City to San Andreas. San Andreas is my favorite, by the way, via Vice City, Auto IV, Auto V, and now we are currently waiting in high anticipation for Auto VI.
I think one thing that has always drawn me to the Grand Theft, series is this storytelling feature it has, and this immersive mode it has, where you get to escape from reality and just immerse yourself in this world, where you get to go and, you know , on nerve wracking missions, your strategic thinking is challenged, how you execute these missions is challenged.
I mean, it is a one stop shop for storytelling and an immersive experience. And currently, I can’t wait for Auto VI to happen. I mean, thinking about it just gives me goosebumps. I swear! ”
CLAUDE:
That was Esther, our Limitless Africa social media manager from Ghana
In 2024 the US video game industry generated over 100 billion dollars in annual economic output, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. American games are played by millions.
JAY:
If you take all of Hollywood and all of music industries combined and double them, gaming is still larger than that. And really, when we look at the youth today, gaming has become the number one media through which they relate with each other, and often get information and entertainment.”
DIMPHO:
But there’s a market that’s growing faster than the US: the African gaming market is growing six times faster than the global average. Revenues hit 1 billion dollars last year. it’s nowhere near as big as in America, but that may soon change.
DOM EROMOSELE:
We have nearly 3 million players last year alone in Africa, and that’s a 10% increase from 2023 to give you insight into just how fast this market is growing. So when you combine the youngest continent in the world and the fastest growing gaming markets in the world, you essentially just have the next frontier for the explosion of games.
DIMPHO:
That’s Dom Eromosele. He is the lead growth manager at the South Africa-based gaming studio Carry1st. They’re backed by some major American companies and investors.
DOM:
So some of our investors include Silicon Valley capital giants like Andreessen Horowitz. You also have giving powerhouses like Rival Games, for example, and tech leaders like Google stepping in and showing that out to the ring as well.
DIMPHO:
And even old school hip hop legends like Nas are getting involved in African gaming.
DOM:
The one that excited me was the investment from the Grammy-winning NAS which is super cool to see. It was an exciting moment for all of the team but it also shows how far the news is spreading on the massive opportunities that exist in the African market.
DIMPHO:
The market for Video gaming in Africa may be growing, but it would be naïve to say that there aren’t obstacles. To help us understand what those might be, I’m turning to Jay Shapiro. He’s the founder of the Pan African gaming group, P.A.G.G. It’s a collective of African game studios.
Hi, Jay, thanks for being here. Can you tell us more about what those obstacles are?
JAY:
Well, I mean, it is an emerging market, fundamentally, but it is the fastest growing. The fastest growing working market in the world, with over a billion youth and so there are challenges, and that’s particularly in the fact that it’s a new market. The first thing to really understand is that Africa itself doesn’t exist. It’s made up of 55 different countries, different markets with different realities and levels of infiltration, legal regulations, currency controls, monetization, type of platforms, etc. And so, for example, Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, markets, and in those places, internet connectivity is absolutely not an issue at all. Fact, I would argue that Kenya has much better connectivity than the US best, but more than 80% coverage of forging across the country. We have over half a billion Internet connected smartphones on the continent already that’s more than all of Canada, US and Mexico combined, and that’s still growing at 20% year over year, whereas the US is growing at 2% so while there are challenges, the opportunity is absolutely massive, and it’s worthwhile going through those difficulties to build the market.
DIMPHO:
And how is the African consumer different? How do you actually tailor your video games to meet those particular needs?
JAY:
So you know, as an example, if we look at China, Korea and Japan in each of those markets, the top five games, all five of them are domestic and produced in that individual country. It’s an example of how players tend to want their local language, their local music, local characters and themes and problems represented in the game, so that when they look at a game, they can see themselves reflected in the game. And so in the case of Africa, that means obviously black characters often, but also environments that are more representative of the African continent and may not be American suburbs, as so many games are.
What’s really interesting is that Africa has 1000s of years of history of amazing stories and legends that have just never been told.
DIMPHO:
If Americans and Africans collaborate, and I’m talking in terms of talent and technology, what do you see happening? I mean, are there areas for collaboration?
JAY:
The biggest area for collaboration is in the element of experience. If there’s one thing that Africa is really lacking, it’s experience, because it’s a new industry. And so you know, the average experience in the industry here has a maximum of five years experience, just because the whole industry is so new. And so there’s really an opportunity for African diaspora who are working in the gaming industry in America, to potentially come home and be those mentors and be the voices of wisdom. You know, any any developer, can watch a YouTube video and learn what to do in terms of making games, but what they can’t learn is what not to do, and that comes from the experience of the wisdom, and that’s why we’re doing co productions with American studios companies like Electronic Arts and Disney and Riot Games to try and bring up the level of African games as fast as we can.”
DIMPHO:
Thanks Jay. good to have you on…. There’s a lot to be done in terms of improving the content for African gamers. I want to come back to Esther here. She mentioned that better representation would improve the quality of African games :
ESTHER:
One of the greatest challenges we face as African gamers has always been the right representation .I think it has been a major flaw in the game development industry where African features, I mean our physical features aren’t really well represented in these games. So I was super excited when I read that researchers from Yale and the University of California are developing an algorithm that gets black features right. Especially with our hair, you never see 4C kinky hair and hairstyles in games and I think what they are doing is super amazing and I just want to see where they go with it.
DIMPHO:
Africans tend to adopt tech faster than anyone else – think of mobile money. So how are Africans changing gaming to suit their way of life?
For this, I’m going back to Dom from Carry1st here.
DOM:
Over 90% of the gamers in Africa play on their mobile so it’s mobile first. It’s not the same over in the US. Yes, the mobile market is also big, but usually when people hear gaming, their mind goes to the PCs and the consoles.
DIMPHO:
But mobile gaming is popular in the US too. How’s innovation happening? Can there be any synergy?
DOM:
I think it’s interesting one. This is a super interesting question. And my thinking is mobile gaming is only set to grow, and it’s going to keep growing even in the US markets. The reason why I say this is because it’s the gaming style that is the easiest for people to contribute to globally, and because of its wider global reach, you there’s a greater incentive for people in the US market to also pivot into this gaming style, because now they’re able to play with people across the world like never before and be involved in all these tournaments.
DIMPHO:
And what happens then?
DOM:
So to give you a good example of this, or a very practical example that I think is going to happen, imagine a world where you have a game, right, that is on mobile. And let’s say this game gets 50,000 people watching whenever it goes live with an official tournament, and you have all these players, but none of these players are from the African continent. Then you fast forward to 2025, and now this game says, Hey, we’re global. Hey, there are gamers in Africa. Let’s get Africa involved right now. Africa gets involved. Maybe an African team is at this tournament final, and all of a sudden you’re seeing the viewers from before this game jump from 50 to 80,000 or to 100,000 maybe even more, which is very possible because of the sheer amount of people that exist on the African continent who are also young and want to watch these these types of contents. What that does for the gamer who is seated in the US, who may be having this game, or has considered playing it, is the game just becomes a lot bigger in their eyes.
DIMPHO:
As the video gaming industry continues to develop in Africa, this is a huge opportunity for Africans and Americans to work together.
Video Gaming can shape hearts and minds and it can also create employment.
It’s time to think big.
CLAUDE:
Thank you for listening to Limitless Africa, the podcast that looks at how Africa and America can work together for shared prosperity. It’s sponsored by the US Department of State and the Seenfire foundation.. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your friends and follow or leave a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
