(4 minutes read)
- The gaming industry in Africa is taking concrete shape with the penetration of the internet and smart phones. That has replaced the visit to café and use of consoles to have access to games
- Also, the gaming is getting localized in the sense that there are configurations of games available in the market, which have African characters, in local languages and lingos
- Gaming is also undergoing a functional transformation
- Multi-functional gaming consoles are emerging in the market, leading to proliferation of games in every nook and corner of the vast continent.
The gaming industry in Africa is taking concrete shape with the penetration of the internet and smart phones. That has replaced the visit to café and use of consoles to have access to games. Also, the gaming is getting localized in the sense that there are configurations of games available in the market, which have African characters, in local languages and lingos.
Gaming is also undergoing a functional transformation. Multi-functional gaming consoles are emerging in the market, leading to proliferation of games in every nook and corner of the vast continent. The Covid-19 pandemic also led to the phenomenal growth of the industry and forced people to come out of the café culture for gaming and depend more on the consoles embedded in the smart phones because of the social distancing norms.
According to experts during the last five years, gaming industry has grown more than five times in Africa. A games analytics company Newzoo and Carry1st, a South African gaming platform conducted a study in 2021 to know the depth of the industry in the continent. It showed that the number of gamers in sub-Saharan Africa. currently stands at 186 million people, an increase from 77 million in 2015.
With 24 million gamers, South Africa currently stands as the country with the largest video game markets in Africa having 40% of the population playing video games. In absolute terms, there are 24 million gamers in South Africa. Now analysts are wondering when the gaming industry is going to replace the movie industry. South Africa is followed by Ghana (27%) and Nigeria (23%) to occupy the second and third positions respectively in gaming. Kenya and Ethiopia finish fourth and fifth in the continent. Gamers constitute 22% and 13% of their population respectively.
Expectation is that this trend may create investment opportunities. Many new companies are coming up in the continent and are seeking support from venture capitalists for investments. Of that, a number of them are start-ups. Developers are now adding new elements to the games to make them more alluring. There are developers who are using blockchains to attract tech-savvy youth in the domain.
Another study by Newswagg’s points to a growing appetite for trading in gaming assets using digital currencies. The study revealed that over 38% of 41.9 million gamers owning crypto across the world being millennials aged 21-38 years old. Africa and the Middle East have a combined 5.9 million gamers owning crypto. With growing population of youngsters, this number is likely to swell in the continent.
