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The African games industry in numbers
05.12.2023 - 03:53 / gamesindustry.biz
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Africa is home to nearly 200 million gamers, who spend hundreds of millions in US dollars on video games (primarily on mobile).
That's according to the newly-published Africa Games Industry Report, which goes live today in the aftermath of Africa Games Week. Produced by Nigeria-based studio Maliyo Games, the report offers an overview of the industry landscape and the audience across Africa, as well as how it fits in with the global games market and the opportunities it presents, based on the latest data and Maliyo's own developers survey.
The studio kindly shared the report with GamesIndustry.biz ahead of publication, allowing us to bring you some of the highlights to create a snapshot of the African games industry. The report was presented at Africa Games Week by Maliyo Games' CEO Hugo Obi, and Kristian Roberts, CEO of Nordicity, which contributed to its creation.
Explaining the reasons that led him to produce this report, Obi said they were "multi-layered."
"I run a studio based in Nigeria – so like most people who are engaged with producing games, I left my day-to-day job," he explained. "My country is quite small and quite comparable to most countries across the continent. I think South Africa is most likely the largest and the most developed [market]. And I understood from going to events like [Africa Games Week], from travelling around the world, meeting investors and talking to policy makers, that we were not doing a good enough job articulating what the [games] industry was, and the opportunities that exist in the African industry."
Roberts highlighted that the Middle East and Africa represent 4% of global games revenue, saying: "The underlying premise of the whole report is that there's a massive market potential for games in Africa. We all already know, of course, that cultural content in Africa is supported around the world, from music to film to fashion, astronomy, arts. The world consumes African cultural content. The fundamental question is: What about games?"
He added: "The report highlights the rich diversity of communities, of cultural groups and languages across the continent, which of course provides an opportunity for new and unique IP."
Obi explained that making the report accessible and easy to read was at the core of the project, as the team isn't only targeting professionals with this research, but also the general public across the continent, to help shift opinions around video games.
"When we put this together, and the thinking around who could use this, we had that vision that it would be accessible to everyone. So the general public, like the mums and dads who don't understand why the kids
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