Hi everyone and thanks for joining in this week! I can’t believe that we are on the home stretch! 20 posts and 5 to go! In this post I will be looking at the West African Gaming Space. This post is my personal opinion on the current state of the industry and where I feel it needs to go.
Before we start, I will state something about myself: I am a dreamer! I dream more than I work! For me, it leads to an idealism that may not be realistic. So without much ado …
The Players
In the gaming space today, we have two sets of players: startups and bootstraps. As at now there are no companies. A startup is a temporary organization setup with the aim of finding a scalable and repeatable business model. A bootstrap is an individual, flaunting an organization that is not even registered!
It may sound funny when you hear a bootstrap being defined. But truth is in the last 3 years, I ran a bootstrap. There was little money but I learnt. Strange when I started out in 2010, I didn’t know that you needed money to start a business. THAT BAD!
In this posts, I will not focus on bootstraps, I will focus on startups. In the West African Gaming Space, there are four that have come into the fore. They are:
I will look at each of this four because the gaming community is a tribe and in a tribe, the elders eat first.
Leti Games
Started in 2009, Leti Games is a Ghanaian Game Development Company. Notable games from them are Street Soccer and iWarrior. Personally I loved the game story behind iWarrior. It is the story of a warrior protecting his village from attack from wild animals. What I really love about this game is the jazz.
Maliyo Games
Started this year, this startup has gone on to show what is possible when a financial analyst runs a tech firm. Talk about achievements in such a short time and you would not be wrong. From a partnership with a leading bank in Nigeria to appearing on CNN, they seem to have it made!
Pledge51
One game that makes this company make this list is Danfo Reloaded. Its one game but enough respect to the developer. This game was first developed in 2007 but gained critical mass in 2012 when Nokia took up the game.
Kuluya
Apart from having a lot of titles, Kuluya didn’t really hit this year. But I sincerely comment the number of games they have successfully developed. While all their games are browser-based, I know it is a matter of time before they breakthrough! For me what is truly important is that they are out there!
Conclusion
This post has looked at the main players in the gaming space. Don’t get me wrong, there are others out there that I have probably not heard of! That said, we must not stay where we started from! In the years to come, I will love to see game companies go on to play on the global market competing and winning!
Fund Raising
In recent times, I started a fundraising campaign on Indiegogo. Straight off I will say what the limitations are
- Nationality
- Absence of a Paypal account
Given that I don’t have a Paypal account, getting donations will involve people using their credit cards and trust me on this, NOBODY likes to use a credit card to make donations.
So someone would ask knowing all this, why did I go ahead. Simple I can accept failure but I cannot accept not trying. If I failed to clarify my thoughts then I would be failing myself.
Gaming West Africa 