and now we travel onwards to the continent of Africa so please welcome four key talents from Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana whose studios have really started to build and accelerate the games industry in Africa. [Applause] [Music] Hello, welcome. So they actually said they

were going to dance in. I don't know what happened to that. Was it last minute nerves? Like, "No, we'll be professional." Protocol, protocol. Well, thanks so much for being here. Very excited uh to introduce you. First off here we have Hugo Obie. He is

the founder of Malo Games in Nigeria. Beside him, Dorothy Arena, programs manager also at Malo, and she also runs the GameUp Africa Talent program. We're going to talk about that. From Kenya, we have Dennis Odera. He's a game producer at Usiku Games. And finally, Aram Taia. He

is CEO and co-founder of Ladyy Arts based in Ghana. Welcome, welcome. So the last group we did some fun facts. We thought we would switch it up a little bit for this group, so we're going to do some characteristics instead. So this is going to be characteristics that they

believe about themselves and why that is. Hugo, what is it? So um, I would say I'm a daredevil. Um, and the reason why I would say that is because um I once rode um 400 kilometers um on a bicycle um east of Lagos. And if any

of you has ever been to sub-Saharan Africa, um the roads are treacherous. Um so that was like the bravest thing I've ever done, and I survived it. Um it was 2 days of riding. Um yeah. Okay, so we've got a daredevil on

her hands Dorothy how about you I am brave I ride a 300 kilometer 300 kilogram motorbike I weigh less than 50 kg myself um so this is a very heavy bike and on my first month with the bike I did over

1,000 kilometers within Nairobi so basically we're saying like yeah okay Hugo Daredevil anyways Dorothy's just yeah go on Dennis how about you yeah I'll try and beat that one um I would say I'm adventurous uh because uh can you catch like the

competitive vibe yeah sorry adventurous because uh I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro actually last year and uh yeah pretty big achievement it sounds like it's made up but it's not not it's not yeah over 5,000 15,000 ft you

know I'm happy there are chairs today cuz my legs are still aching up until last year but uh how was the air up there and oh yeah I'm still feeling it now like you know still buzzing but yeah I'd say adventurous is my characteristic

amazing what about you Aram um for me I would say I'm a dreamer or like a Batman you know um 15 years ago 2009 I dreamed of uh the gaming industry not just a game company and here we are assembled Avengers assembled

so say [Applause] that okay let's hop into it because again we don't have a lot of time but uh you know you mentioned 2009 you imagined or envisioned this games industry and I think for a lot of developers in the

West, we're like 2009, that's not like that long ago. A games industry already existed, but why is that different for the continent of Africa? We did a lot of mythbusting for Latin America and maybe I'll go to you first, Hugo, because you

also wrote a report about the African games industry. What are maybe some misconceptions about Africa and gaming in Africa that need to be busted? Well, I don't know what busted, but okay, we're not going to get them busted. I was hoping... No, so I... I typically start um with

a slide um called 'Africa is not a country', um because I... I really want to like, sort of like delve just a little bit into um some basic misconceptions that people might have. So, you know, Africa is 55 countries, um over 3,000 tribes, 2,000 languages, um 30 million

square kilometers, um about 20% of the land's lived in population, um just to provide some context. Um, although, although all of that said, is predominantly split between English and Francophone um speaking countries, but multiple dialects, um but there are some other very

important um bits that I think um loads of people in the in the West or outside of the continent do not realize. Um, it's 7 hours from London or Paris, um you know, from Lagos for instance, um and we're pretty much in the

same time zone as Europe, um so working with Africa is is pretty easy, um so that's the starting point. Um, but going back to the report, um you know, like I've been in the industry since 2012, um just a few years after Irim started and what

I realized is that over that period of time we were evolving as an industry but we were not necessarily articulating our journey and we were not presenting our value proposition to the marketplace both locally and internationally. Um, so you know my team and I um spent some

time um putting together the first very comprehensive G industry report um which really tries to um you know like create a snapshot of what is going on in the space. So what is going on in the space? Well, we can start with um player population growth as an example, you know

currently we have around 200 million players as an example. Um, you know like we're we're going to cross over a billion dollars in revenue this year. We have is predominantly mobile um as you would imagine. Android is is the kind of like predominant platform that people

are playing on and people are mostly playing a combination of like casual, hybrid, and hyper-casual games. Um, but we have a really large potential for growth because the overall population size is 1.4 billion. So we're looking at less than 20% of people playing today um and

in in in you know 25 years from now we're going to cross over to 2.5 billion and we would continue to grow as um as a population. So I see huge potential for the future. Um, and when it comes to some of that potential I mean we talked about

India just a minute ago and how the number one title there actually came from India. And I'm wondering within the continent of Africa are there countries there as well where the number one game also happens to be made in that country or is it different when it comes to to

Africa, um, I'll throw it to you. Yes, um, I think Africa is not there yet. The number one game is still not African yet, but very soon is going to be. And um, because we've seen Africans consume African content. We've seen the success of Nollywood.

We've seen the success of the music industry, and it's growing very fast. And with this, gaming is the next frontier to present cultural elements for the next billion population, right? Africa has the youngest population, it has a very high growing middle class who can pay, so the

content that we have, the rich African content, has to be preserved in video games. I knew about Thor, Odin through video games, through Marvel Avengers, before even knowing about my cultural elements. And a lot of African parents are concerned about that, but there's a clear

gap of skills like it's not there. But we studios here employ local talent, and we do that through our custom created internship programs. We have boot camps. Recently, we started taking gaming electives in big universities in Ghana in Africa, for instance. And our studios, I

think, Malu Ley Arts, Isuku KIRO, we have titles that people play. We have Sev, right, preserving African elements for a global audience. We have Africa's Legends. Malu has, um, did something with Disney recently with Rising Chef, right? Um, we have KIRO games on Xbox with, um, Oron and

and so on and so forth. You can check us out. So the growing content is growing, and there's a huge population of African diaspora who are concerned about their kids knowing about their roots. So these, this is going to position them to definitely consume African content, so

that is the huge potential that we see um Africa consuming so in the very next about five years we should find a hit like a first African country reporting Candy Crush as the last game being played and probably Swift being the first game yeah from a country you know so that is what we see

uh that is the the dream see still dreamer the dream um yeah and you mentioned like you touched on that piece about talent just now so I wanted to swing it over to Dorothy um you work on something called game up Africa and you your whole whole world is talent and

trying to build up talent can you tell us a little about uh that program and also what it means to the rest of the ecosystem yeah um there's something very interesting going on within the African region right now in that um the continent is positioned to be the only

one in the world where the population is set to double by 2050 and this population is set to further double in 2100 and this presents two things there's a lot more consumption of content within the region and then there's the need to create more content

for the region and the studios know this the people know this uh so now the question becomes who is creating this content and the ear founding Studios Aram started in 209 Hugo started in 2012 they struggled a lot to find local talent within their regions to get into

their Studios um and this is where game up Africa comes in because it makes more sense to have Africans creating content for Africa Indians are creating content for India so we can do the same and so game up Africa is a talent development initiative uh that focuses on three

things so we do training, we do mentorship and we do knowledge sharing to thousands of game programmers, artists and sound engineers every year for four years. Um, so there are thousands of people now, over 5,000, are getting fed into the local ecosystem. So when Hugo here wants

to hire or when Aram wants to hire they don't go looking very far, they just look within the locality because we train um across the whole continent. Um, earlier on this year Disney Games published a game together with Malo Games and the interesting thing about this game is

that 75% of the developers came from the Game of Africa program. Wow, yeah, you're like, "M, yes, we love Dorothy." No, I think it's amazing and and like you said, it speaks so much to this ecosystem that you're starting to build.

So uh, when it comes to that, like yes, we have talent, yes, we have these, you know, cultural touch points but also there's much more of a community that's starting to be built on the continent. Like I was at um Africa Games Week last year and I

got to see it firsthand, just that like collaborative, yes competitive but also collaborative spirit coming together. So Dennis, I was um hoping you could chat a bit more about that ecosystem when it comes to community that's really starting to build up. Yeah, of course and

always competitive as you say. Um, but yeah, the ecosystem is definitely there, it's definitely growing. Um, Africa Games Week as you mentioned, which is also happening uh uh this November as well. We've also had Lego Games, we in Nigeria which has been massive for the continent.

earlier this year we had Playing for the Planet as well uh where we used gamification as a tool to tackle some of the world's bigger challenges so that being happening in Africa just shows how much of the continent uh deserves the attention that it's been given and these

examples also the Global Game Jams which I was lucky enough to participate in where teams come together to collaborate and to create magnificent games based on specific themes and these examples are just uh a reason why that Africa should be uh considered and brings global audiences together to see that Africa

should be considered as a huge market in the gaming industry yeah no I mean I loved it last year so any of you like you said you wanted to travel you all had your hands up to warmer places so I'm calling you out for that please do

yeah if you can go visit Africa Games Week and in Cape Town it's a it's a really really great event uh super cool community and before we head off because we're going to get get the signs soon again can we chat a little bit about the

future so where do you see Africa sort of position within the next 5 to 10 years when it comes to the global games industry and anyone can take it and jump in no I I can start um so I think it's not even it's not going to it's not even

going to take 10 years or 5 years I think in the next 2 to 3 years um we're going to see a great transformation um of Africa kind of like transforming itself from a net consumer market to a net producer market um that

energy is already happening today and we're seeing more interest, more investment. You know, like as Dor alluded to, um, we partnered with Disney um earlier this year, or last year actually. I released the game earlier this year on a first Africa-focused IP, um, and the first

kind of like collaboration with a big, um, you know, like IP holder and an African game studio, and that is really catalyzing the industry. You know, like we have an extremely young population, that population is playing games and is hungry for the knowledge to make games.

And we are solving that problem as well by creating, you know, channels and pathways for people to learn this really desirable skill. You know, like what will they produce? What would they create? What would they share with the global audience? Um, and we also know that the

global market is looking for kind of like fresh, new ideas. Years um, and Africa has really strong stories to tell. And we also have, you know, like new audiences who are going to discover games and help continue to grow this industry that we all love. Anyone else want to jump in for

final thoughts? Yes. Um, just to add to that, I think a lot of co-productions are going to happen uh because we are positioning um our technical and creative um studios and um skill sets to provide that. Um, I think um about three years ago we did some narrative

consulting with Riot Games, and also are doing co-productions with other studios in the Netherlands and all that from the soil. Like, all that is coming locally, and having universities now taking up game design, that is where the parents understand. Parents, you are also an

instructor of game design, yes, and I'm now a lecturer of that game design.  Personally, I'm taking on, um, being... and that is a story to be told - a self-taught game designer now becoming a lecturer in that, and recently I just entered a PhD program in

gamification. That is a career path that an African parent understands, so they can now push their kid to go do that. And the esports community is also growing very fast, right? So parents are now seeing that, hey, games can have a career path. Very soon, they will be compe-

competing with African titles, not just the European titles. So I'm looking forward to seeing the first African hit, um, game that is going to be played globally in Superfest or, you know, it's a great tie-up for this weekend, exactly. So, um, that's what I see coming in, and there's

so much potential. Just to end to that, I... atletic arts for the past two months, we've had 90 applications of hungry local African talent who want to intern or work with us. It has never happened before, and we've taken 50 of them on

internships. And we normally employ 20 to 30%, all self-funded, so we need partners to make this happen. And I'm sure Malo has the same story, um, isuku has the same story. We are trying our best to start groups like IGDA, being there, African

game development group, the... and a professional group called PAG, that... that... that's a Pan-African gaming group that we started, which is still seeing how best to position itself to make co-productions happen on the continent. So, yes, these are some of the things that

will happen in the next 5 years. I also think um we are in the process of creating this self-sustaining value chain, and Hugo said we have a very rich culture that has yet to be tapped into fully. Um so what we're about to start

seeing is this um cultural uh practices and stories being put into game experiences that that people can actually get to play and interact with. We're seeing a lot of that in the film industry, in the music industry, and we want to start doing that um within the

continent, creating games but for Africans and for the world. Very exciting. Yeah, go for it. Yeah, and uh just to add on to what my colleagues have said, there's also a lot of enthusiasm in the continent, especially towards the young people. Um I think where an example of

that, you have Irum, you have Hugo, sort of the old gods, and Dorothy and I, the young ones. Who knows in the next few years, it'll be Dorothy and I who will be the old ones, and then we'll have some young ones. Yeah, basically Dennis is

saying it's time for you guys to move over, time for them to go. Yes, yeah, exactly. And have some more enthusiastic, more young people, the next generation coming in. Dinosaurs, yeah. So it speaks more to the enthusiasm that the young people have in

the industry in Africa, and that's what's going to skyrocket it from here on out. Oh, I think it's super exciting, and I know you touched on esports and uh I just wanted to, like you mentioned super fast before, what what does esports look like on

the continent currently, um yeah, it's growing very fast. Um, so currently we have, um, esports teams and, um, let our sponsors, one, um, called Play Province, and we also, um, work with the Esports Association of Ghana. Um, the government is understanding more and more of esports

which is trickling down to us the developers. At some point it might come, it has not happened yet. Um, but we have pro teams who are playing, um, Clash of Clans, some are playing, um, Valorant, FIFA, and they've been traveling globally. Uh

they were in Bali, they were in, um, I think they came to Romania, um, and now parents are now pushing their kids to go do esports, like they are like, oh, they are teering them up. Can you imagine an African parent seeing the child play

games and it's like, yeah, go for, go for it. And I've started doing that as a parent myself. If my kid wants to spend time on Roblox, um, hopefully, swe or Africa's Legend soon, I tell him if you don't get better you are not playing the

next day. So anytime he comes to me with the FIFA score, I'm like, are you playing world class or you are playing semi-pro? If it's a semi-pro, no FIFA for you tomorrow. It, I feel like there's lots of similarities between, um, arum, arum, and

Roblox, yeah, do, and my kids, I have four kids, um, adorable, they all game junkies, and, um, yeah, just give them a shout out. L, um, SE setiam, these guys play games all the time, but they need to get better to have the next day. So that is

It's okay amazing uh I think that is a really nice way to wrap it up um yeah like I said super excited about everything that's happening uh in Africa and I I know that we've just like scratched the surface but please do seek all of these guys out and uh have

further conversations with them I know everyone has games with them as well you can play their games you know uh but yeah thank you so much for for being here thank you okay thank you [Applause]

Emerging Markets Panel Session Part 2 - Games First 2024

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