In Africa, a new creative energy is seeing tech geeks give up their consoles and day jobs to take to full-time video game development. It’s not a level-playing field but they are engaging a growing hyper-connected audience.



THE YOUNGEST continent in the world has a new obsession – mobile gaming. What’s newer is local content created by Africans for Africa. Take 39-year-old Khumo Moerane, the developer of Kea’s World and founder of the Africa Space Programme Video Games Studio in Johannesburg, South Africa. 



He is using a modern medium to tell old tales, celebrating and preserving African folklore among children and adults. Today, he solely designs and develops African video games. And has reached another level altogether. The scene was set in the late 1980s, in Ga-Rankuwa, a large settlement in the northwest of Pretoria, the capital of South Africa, when his parents bought him his first console, a third-generation 8-bit home video game called Sega Master System. 



He was instantly hooked. “But back then, you were like ‘man, there are no South Africans or Africans that are making games’. So, in this sense, it was almost like a far-fetched dream; something that would never happen,” he tells FORBES AFRICA. 



<div class="wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile" style="grid-template-columns:34% auto"><figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="681" height="1024" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/DSC_0801-681x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-50897 size-full" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/DSC_0801-681x1024.jpg 681w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/DSC_0801-199x300.jpg 199w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/DSC_0801-768x1155.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/DSC_0801-1021x1536.jpg 1021w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/DSC_0801-1362x2048.jpg 1362w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/DSC_0801-scaled.jpg 1702w" sizes="(max-width: 681px) 100vw, 681px" /></figure><div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">But back then, you were like ‘man, there are no South Africans or Africans that are making games’. – Khumo Moerane</blockquote>
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After studying graphic design, Moerane moved to Cape Town in 2012 where the gaming life found him again. With friends, he hosted monthly FIFA tournaments for gamers, playing for eight to 12 hours at a stretch. In 2017, Moerane quit his job as a graphic designer at news broadcaster, eNCA, and went on pursue a Master of Science in Video Game Enterprise, Production and Design at Birmingham City University in the United Kingdom under a Chevening Scholarship.



His very first creation, Kea’s World, is a free-to-play gaming app downloaded by users across the world. In May 2020, he was featured by Apple in its Africa Month Promotion and again on Heritage Day on September 24. Moerane’s aim is to continue to inspire and promote native languages and African folklore. 



“So it’s like now how do I use games to inspire other people, inspire kids, but then we’re using characters that look like them. Because I think all this time we’ve been playing games with characters, but we can’t relate to them,” he says



<h3 class="has-text-align-center" id="h-room-for-development">ROOM FOR DEVELOPMENT</h3>



 Like other sectors, the global gaming industry to lacks representation when it comes to women, Africans, and people of color. But beyond that, it is also difficult to. sustain a career in gaming on the African continent due to lack of funding and investment. 



Sithe Ncube, the founder and director of Prosearium, an initiative to get 1,000 African women to create and self-publish their own games, says: “Sometimes you can see the common thread among communities across the continent, which is usually related to the lack of accessibility of resources when compared to the Western games industry… It is difficult to find local game publishers and financing options almost throughout the continent.” 



Her journey with gaming began in 2013 in Lusaka, Zambia, post an inspiring meeting with a local game developer. She sought out more of them, which led her to host small events teaching the tools of game development to beginners. She slowly began to realize how significant the problem was for Africans keen on entering the field. 



“Outside of South Africa, there are not many places one can study game development-related courses on the continent,” she says. 



So in 2014, Ncube moved to South Africa to study computer science and entrench herself in the local game development scene. “In South Africa, there is an art focused and often experimental approach to game development that often mirrors what you see in other places outside Africa,” she says. 



<div class="wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile" style="grid-template-columns:46% auto"><figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="684" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Sithe_Hi_Res_2_supplied-1024x684.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-50895 size-full" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Sithe_Hi_Res_2_supplied-1024x684.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Sithe_Hi_Res_2_supplied-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Sithe_Hi_Res_2_supplied-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Sithe_Hi_Res_2_supplied-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Sithe_Hi_Res_2_supplied-2048x1367.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure><div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">It is difficult to find local game publishers and financing options almost throughout the continent. – Sithe Ncube, founder and director, Prosearium</blockquote>
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Michael Preece, an advanced gaming player based in Johannesburg, knows this only too well. He has spent thousands of hours playing hundreds of different titles across multiple platforms for over 12 years. Yet, of all the games he has played, only a small percentage of them are those developed in Africa by Africans.



“The sad reality is that most African-based gaming studios are rather small and don’t develop especially well-known IPs, [they usually develop] Indie and mobile games, which, to be frank, aren’t even remotely the biggest markets,” he tells FORBES AFRICA. 



The gaming market is competitive with established commercial game developers, yet, the cost to download content in Africa and the digital divide are crippling issues, making this field prohibitive for the talented few. But not all hope is lost. 



African creators and game developers like Moerena are rising to take on the challenge to ensure there is more African representation. Ncube says that in West Africa, there is a proliferation of locally-created mobile games and therefore, a new talent pool of people developing related skills.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large" id="h-i-also-suspect-there-would-be-fierce-competition-among-telcos-who-have-been-trying-to-get-into-the-gaming-business-to-try-to-fill-the-gap-in-distribution-and-sales">I also suspect there would be fierce competition among telcos who have been trying to get into the gaming business to try to fill the gap in distribution and sales.</blockquote>



In Cameroon, there are studios creating distinct intellectual property that tell local stories. In Zambia, there are young hobbyist individual developers creating and sharing games to showcase their skill. According to a report by the BBC in 2019, the video games market in Kenya was worth $50 million in 2016 and is expected to double this year. 



“As industries become more visible, we’re bound to see more variety crop up around the continent,” says Ncube, full of hope.



<h3 class="has-text-align-center" id="h-ethiopia-s-endless-creative-inspiration">ETHIOPIA’S ENDLESS CREATIVE INSPIRATION</h3>



 In Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, a young gaming enthusiast is bringing more visibility to the industry. Dawit Abraham is the founder and CEO of Qene Games. He is also a game developer and android application engineer. 



“The industry in Ethiopia is still in its infancy with only a few active studios present. Ethiopia doesn’t have Google and Apple merchant accounts that would have allowed Ethiopian game developers to sell their games across the world. The industry is also yet to be recognized and supported by the government,” he tells FORBES AFRICA. 



<div class="wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile" style="grid-template-columns:38% auto"><figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="400" height="400" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Dawit-Abraham-supplied.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-50889 size-full" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Dawit-Abraham-supplied.jpeg 400w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Dawit-Abraham-supplied-300x300.jpeg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Dawit-Abraham-supplied-150x150.jpeg 150w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Dawit-Abraham-supplied-80x80.jpeg 80w" sizes="(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px" /></figure><div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">University graduates are now actively pursuing game development as a career option. – Dawit Abraham, founder and CEO, Qene Game</blockquote>
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However, despite these challenges, the industry is alive and kicking. “Gaming communities actively get together and build games on hackathons and game jams. University graduates are now actively pursuing game development as a career option,” he says. 



“Ethiopia, as a country with more than 3,000 years of history and culture, has a large pool for creative inspiration. From the artistic styles that have been around for millennia, unique music styles, and many fascinating legends and folklore, our game developers have an endless source to feed their creativity and imagination.” 



Hubs of creativity and inspiration thus make countries like Ethiopia great places to begin when seeking ideas for original and unique games especially against the backdrop of the continent’s burgeoning creative economy. Abraham believes that as more publishers become interested in the African market, the more game developers and games we will see. 



“I expect that we would see a rise in the number of mobile game developers and also the quality of games coming out of Africa. I also suspect there would be fierce competition among telcos (telecommunication operators) who have been trying to get into the gaming business to try to fill the gap in distribution and sales,” he says. 



Augmentative Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) gaming experiences are also great opportunities for the African tourism industry to explore. Companies such as Guzo Tech in Ethiopia have received grants for their work in AR tourism showcasing the country’s historic sites.



<h3 class="has-text-align-center" id="h-covid-as-a-game-changer">COVID AS A GAME-CHANGER </h3>



Meanwhile, another game developer is also representing his country in the global gaming arena. 



Cordel Robbin-Coker is a Sierra Leonean who grew up in the United States. About three years ago, he launched Carry 1st, which is a leading mobile games publisher serving first generation African smartphone users. 



“I never really thought it was conceivable to have a successful career in gaming so at some point I put my console away and got a job!” he tells FORBES AFRICA. 



He spent the first decade of his career in corporate finance and private equity. Thankfully, Robbin-Coker found his way back into the gaming industry and is making a real impact through what he knows best. As featured in Forbes, his company raised $4 million to catalyze gaming in Africa. 



Tapping into the smartphone generation was a smart move for Robbin-Coker as the African continent has the highest number of millennials and Generation Z compared to the rest of the world. 



<div class="wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile" style="grid-template-columns:39% auto"><figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="483" height="482" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Cordel_Headshot_supplied.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-50887 size-full" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Cordel_Headshot_supplied.jpg 483w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Cordel_Headshot_supplied-300x300.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Cordel_Headshot_supplied-150x150.jpg 150w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Cordel_Headshot_supplied-80x80.jpg 80w" sizes="(max-width: 483px) 100vw, 483px" /></figure><div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">We have very social hyperengaged populations. Social gaming is a perfect fit. – Cordel Robbin-Coker</blockquote>
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“As more of them get smartphones, there is an extraordinary demand for digital services, with entertainment and connection being at the top of the list. We have very social hyper-engaged populations. Social gaming is a perfect fit,” he says. 



Over the last year, Carry 1st has been focused on completing the transition from a game studio to a regional publisher with third-party game studios. Their first publishing partnership was with Abraham’s Qene Games. With many big plans to expand, Robbin-Coker says that the pandemic has provided more opportunities to thrive than he ever thought possible. 



“For our business, we transitioned from three offices to zero. Going fully remote has forced us to strengthen our processes and our dissemination of the company culture and values. We’ve been able to recruit top industry talent in Europe to complement our strong core on the continent. The pandemic has honed our focus on what matters most as a company and in our personal lives,” he says. 



According to ironSource, a platform that builds technologies that help game developers take their game to the next level, there are 2.51 billion gamers worldwide and it is predicted that by 2022, 45.9% of the population will be mobile gamers. 



The market of mobile gaming is predicted to be worth $56.6 billion by 2024 taking up 59% of the global games industry by 2021. According to the Africa Gaming Market – Growth, Trends, and Forecasts (2020-2025), mobile gaming is gaining popularity in remote parts of Africa. 



“For example, more than 290 million people in North Africa use mobile phones. The mobile market in the region generates USD 90 billion annually,” the report states. 



The scene is set in Africa, and the game has begun, with some clear winners emerging.

Rear View Of Boy Playing Video Game On Computer In Darkroom

How Africa Is Getting Its Mobile Game On!

Topline:&nbsp;With school closures, mandatory work-from-home policies and lockdowns taking place in the U.S. as a result of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, gaming has seen higher engagement, especially over this past weekend.



<ul><li>Steam, the most popular digital PC gaming marketplace, reached new heights Sunday, drawing a record 20,313,451 concurrent users to the 16-year-old service,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/SteamDB/status/1239180882826715136?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according to third-party database SteamDB</a>.</li><li>Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, released by Steam-owner Valve in 2012, seems to be the top beneficiary of the increased engagement,&nbsp;<a href="https://steamcharts.com/app/730#48h" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">breaking it&#8217;s all-time peak on Sunday</a>&nbsp;with 1,023,2290 concurrent players, topping its previous peak last month by a million, which itself beat the record set in April 2016.</li><li>Like other esports,&nbsp;CS:GO&nbsp;has had to cancel events due to the virus, particularly the Intel Extreme Masters in Katowice earlier this month,&nbsp;<a href="https://escharts.com/tournaments/csgo/iem-katowice-2020-csgo" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">though its peak viewership reached over a million</a>, making it one of the most watched tournaments in the esports&#8217; history.</li><li>Activision Blizzard&#8217;s new free-to-play battle royale spinoff&nbsp;Call of Duty: Warzone, launched March 10 on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4, is also likely benefiting,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/ZhugeEX/status/1238678829956247553" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">drawing in a staggering 15 million in three days</a>, besting the record 10 million in three days by last year&#8217;s battle royale sensation&nbsp;Apex Legends.</li><li>These new heights follows similar effects of the virus on China and Italy:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-12/housebound-italian-kids-strain-network-with-fortnite-marathon" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Telecom Italia&#8217;s CEO told Bloomberg</a>&nbsp;it saw a 70% increase in traffic over its landline network, with&nbsp;Fortnite&nbsp;playing a significant part, while Chinese live-streaming service Douyu experienced increased viewership of the country&#8217;s most popular games,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/2020/02/26/seven-surprising-facts-about-coronavirus/#226d2ea629d1">according to market analyst Niko Partners</a>.</li><li>While gaming was considered &#8220;recession proof&#8221; during the 2008 market crash, stocks aren&#8217;t immune to the current historic drops: software developers like Activision Blizzard are facing a 9% decrease in price year-to-date, while hardware companies that rely on Chinese manufacturing like Nintendo are seeing bigger drops of 24%.</li></ul>



What To Watch For: If these records keep rising as the closings and lockdowns continue. Arriving this week is Nintendo&#8217;s long-awaited Animal Crossing: New Horizons for the Switch console, a relaxing &#8220;life-simulator&#8221; that&#8217;s set to have a big day with many fans not-so-jokingly asking Nintendo to launch early.



<figure class="wp-block-embed-twitter wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">Nintendo do the right thing and release Animal Crossing today, forcing people to stay inside and containing the coronavirus. You have the power to end this&mdash; Paul Ritchey (@PaulRitchey) <a href="https://twitter.com/PaulRitchey/status/1237795309226524673?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 11, 2020</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Surprising Fact: Plague Inc., a game that tasks players in creating a virus that wipes out humanity, surged in popularity late January, becoming the top-paid game on the Chinese app store at one point, but <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattperez/2020/02/27/china-removed-epidemic-themed-game-plague-inc-from-the-china-app-store/#10671abf4e50">the game has now been removed in China</a> at the direction of the government.



Further Reading: <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattperez/2020/03/13/youre-working-from-home-and-want-to-try-gaming-heres-how/#53119614316b">So You’re Suddenly Working From Home And Want To Try Gaming? Here’s How To Get Started.</a> 



&#8211;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattperez/">Matt Perez</a>, Forbes Staff, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/innovation">Innovation</a>

gettyimages-1097026358-170667a

Video Games Are Being Played At Record Levels As The Coronavirus Keeps People Indoors

Interest in eSports is rapidly picking up in South Africa, and Springbok player Ryan Kankowski is now fully into it, training and mentoring youngsters.

Former South African Springbok player Ryan Kankowski has displayed his prowess in the open on rugby fields around the world.
Now, inside a closed room, the October-born 32-year-old is playing a different game – and winning.
Kankowski welcomes FORBES AFRICA to the digital world of gaming at Nexus, a gaming hub situated in Randburg, northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa. It’s the rugby union player’s home from home surrounded by posters and the latest gaming memorabilia. This is where he really lets loose.
The square-shaped building we are in resembles a Tetris block, and in the center is the Nexus café.
Enthusiastic gamers rush in and out of the retail store to either purchase the latest games or just catch up on the latest gaming trends.
Kankowski, dressed comfortably in a red sweater and grey pants, orders coffee.
“Getting on the field, you feel the atmosphere. But once you are there, you don’t see what is around you. You focus on what is happening in front of you. It’s the same with eSports. You are watching on a big screen, when you do something right, the people cheer for you. You can see and feel the excitement. It makes you want to get bigger and better every year,” he says, as he sips the hot beverage.
<blockquote>“I once played for 20 hours non-stop. You don’t do anything in between. Once you start playing, you just don’t stop.”</blockquote>
Coming from a competitive contact sport such as rugby, Kankowski uses the skills he learned on the field when he is in front of a computer screen. Balance and discipline is what he takes pride in.
Kankowski, who says he is currently on a break from professional rugby, now spends his time offering mentorship to school children interested in eSports. He also trains with the Energy gaming team.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/entrepreneurs/2018/09/03/building-blockchain-tech-with-the-world-as-their-official-address/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Building Blockchain Tech With The World As Their Official Address</a>
Aware of the importance of maintaining a professional attitude, both on and off the field, Kankowski advises professional eSport players on representing their respective brands at gaming events.
eSports is a competitive online, electronic or video game played against teams or individual players. These competitions commonly take the form of organized, multi-player video games.
“Rugby had been my entire life. I played professionally for 15 years, I always loved gaming. If I wasn’t on the field, I’d probably be at home playing games. It seemed like a logical choice for me; it is a part of my life so why not go into something that is growing rapidly in South Africa,” says Kankowski.
Kankowski started his rugby career at the age of 17. He played for major teams like the Golden Lions, Cell C Sharks, and the South African national team. He traveled the world for rugby tournaments but always made time for e-gaming with teammates whenever they needed a break from the adrenaline rush on the field.
“Sports guys do play. A lot of them travel with Xboxes, PlayStations and laptops. It is a nice thing to switch off to forget about life. I have traveled for many years with my laptop. In my first year, I ended up traveling to Japan with my entire desktop. I carried it overseas with me.”
“The atmosphere is really different. In rugby, you have like over 60,000 people watching you. In South Africa, the eSports meets are not as big as it is in the rest of the world. There are close to a 1,000 people. Most of the guys you meet there are guys you’ve played against or even played with them at some stage,” he says.
He recognizes the importance of management and professionalism in all aspects of life. eSports and rugby, the two are worlds apart, but are heavily dependent on the character of the individual players.
Kankowski uses his experience as a benchmark when coaching youngsters.
<div id="attachment_37569" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37569" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-37569 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Ryan3-1024x851.jpg" alt="" width="740" height="615" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Ryan3-1024x851.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Ryan3-300x249.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Ryan3-600x499.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Ryan3-768x638.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Ryan3.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" />Ryan Kankowski at his first virtual reality gaming experience at the Nexus gaming hub in Johannesburg. Photo by Gypseenia Lion.</div>
“You have kids who are brilliant in sport but do not understand life. You can’t get on the stage and swear at somebody. You are representing a company. We get taught that in sports – how to handle the media, how to speak and how to navigate different spaces. There are a lot of them stuck in a room playing games, they don’t get the interaction between people. But that is changing now. The more professional the teams get, the more professional the players become. If I can bring a little bit of the rugby professionalism into eSports by showing them how the professional set up actually runs…If you are part of a team you represent something. There is a bit of professional etiquette that comes with it,” he says.
Reflecting on how much he misses his former rugby teammates, he adds: “If you don’t respect your team, they will not work with you. It doesn’t matter how good you are.
You may be the best scorer, but you will lose. You will eventually get kicked out of the team because you are just not a good player. It is about the team. They are like a family; they know everything about each other.”
Kankowski, who like his father spends most of his time gaming, enjoys playing mystery and adventure games. Amongst his favorites are PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, an online multi-player battle game and Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, an action-adventure stealth video game.
So whether you are spending endless hours in front of the computer or sweating it off in the sun, the principles of sportsmanship remains the same.
Take this from a national rugby player who keeps it professional on and off the field.

Ryan

No Play Like E-Play For Former Springbok Rugby Player

It’s a typical Johannesburg day in the suburbs. People are walking their dogs and men sell feather dusters on the sides of the road. A big story here is when the garbage truck comes late. But knock on the door of number 26 Heathfield, Fairlands, and out comes a married couple fully clad in pink and bone armour and ready to battle dinosaurs or gigantic monsters should they threaten this fair land. On a scorching Johannesburg summer’s day, this was the meeting of Jeanine-Dee and Clint Hartog, a graphic designer and salesman, just two of the many devotees of cosplay.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-29877 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/DSC_8919-245x300.jpg" alt="" width="245" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_8919-245x300.jpg 245w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_8919-300x367.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_8919-600x733.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_8919-768x939.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_8919.jpg 837w" sizes="(max-width: 245px) 100vw, 245px" />
Cos What?
Cosplayers are the following who dress as their favorite characters from the ever-growing gaming, anime and comic book industry.
“If you think this is bad, try walking around the whole day at KinCon. Clint sweated so badly people were afraid to go near him by the end of the day,” says Jeanine-Dee.
Cosplay is an idea born in Japan, but took off in America at comic book conventions. The gaming characters rarely fail to turn heads.
“I think it’s becoming a character that you’re ideally a fan of. Mainly cosplayers go to conventions and it’s to connect with other fans that have the same love of games or an anime character. At the end of the day you are a cosplayer,” says the 27-year-old game fan Jeanine-Dee.
“It’s fun to be in the life of that character for that day,” says Clint.
The Hartogs are not your average married couple; their home is like entering a temple to the gods of gaming. Piles of DVDs ring the lounge. Boxes filled with colored materials reach the ceiling and a spare bed is littered with Pokémon plush toys. The crowning glory is the couple’s two TV sets, enshrined by PS3s and gaming gadgets.
“For me, it’s improved my confidence. I used to be very shy. It’s improved my creativity. It’s something that if you are interested in dressing up like Dr Who, then do it. You don’t know where it will end up,” says Jeanine-Dee.
Their custom outfits, made from 3mm to 10mm thick EVA foam, was painstakingly moulded into Helms, Plates, Gauntlets, Waists and Leggings as per the game. In Monster Hunter, ‘Kali’ and ‘Squall’, as they are known in the PSP game, are bounty hunters that take down the monsters to earn rewards.  The couple are such big fans of the game they even run their own guild, where they link with other fans on weekends for multiplayer game.
“You can make your outfit from scratch. Or you can buy your costume online or you can even get a seamstress to make your outfit for you. Creating this armor was like a puzzle. We dissected each armor piece and then worked from there. There are basic patterns like for a kimono or a jacket. But basically you have to go from there to make it suit your own character,” says Jeanine-Dee.
The armor took two solid months of breaking their backs on their lounge floor. It’s a common night for the pair to crawl into their bed with burnt fingers from their glue gun called Grimer, a goo-like Pokémon; covered in layers of paint; and their eyes square from playing games.
For the Hartogs, the blistered fingers and long nights sewing armor were all worth it. At the August KinCon convention, held in Edenvale, Johannesburg, Jeanine-Dee’s outfit won whilst Clint’s placed third in the gaming category.
“It’s nerve-wracking. Normally you have to do a two-minute skit. Basically you have to become the persona of your character; you have to show yourself as that character. When you enter you have to give a reference picture to the judges so that they can see where you are from and if you have the correct detail…Some rules only allow you to enter a cosplay outfit once. At another competition you would have to make a whole new one,” says Jeanine-Dee.
“A lot of guys struggle with their first time. We encourage people to just try it once, even if you just go as a casual cosplay. Just try it once and see if you like it. We look at our first cosplay pictures and we think to ourselves why did we wear that? It was so terrible. But we’ve grown our skills since then,” says Clint.
If nothing else, Jeanine-Dee and Clint are dedicated. They have been fans of cosplay for several years. The couple even went as far as taking a road trip to Port Elizabeth (PE), a 1,000 kilometer journey, for a convention. The drive down was an unusual affair as Jeanine spent most of the trip embroidering their outfits. When they emerged from the parking lot, their cosplays nearly blew away in the city’s notorious gusty wind, a hazard for any want-to-be cosplayer.
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“We were the only ones from Jo’burg, so when people were asking us where we were from, we would start by saying ‘we’re from a game called…’and they would say ‘no no no, like where are you from in South Africa’ and we would say Jo’burg. They were really excited. We were the only guys who said we would go and we actually managed the distance,” says Clint.
“I suppose you could say we will go the distance for cosplay,” says Jeanine-Dee with a cheeky smile behind her Rathian Heart U armor.
In the meantime, the couple has lots of work to do. Plans for an outfit that will show in Cape Town in the first Saturday of May have already begun.
“Clint and I have done a lot of gaming characters this year. A lot of people say we are gaming cosplayers, so next year we are going to spice things up. It might mean a female Loki popping up,” says Jeanine-Dee.
Their neighbors will surely be on the lookout to catch a glimpse of the couple on their next adventure in the ever-safe suburb of Fairlands.
Growth of Gaming
rAge is a small drop in the ocean for the gaming industry that’s worth R2.4 billion in South Africa, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) South African entertainment and media outlook: 2014 – 2018. By 2018, it is expected to grow to R3.7 billion. Nerds worldwide are also making millions in eSports. Twenty million people tuned in through online streaming to watch The International  2014 finals of DotA 2, a strategy game where two five-man teams face off in a head to head to destroy the other’s base. The winners of the finals, Chinese team, “Newbee”, pocketed $5 million for first place, from a prize pool of roughly $10 million.
Expanding Audiences
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By far the largest cosplay event of the year is hosted by Legion Ink at the Really Awesome Gaming Expo (rAge) held in Johannesburg. There were 98 cosplay competitors at rAge in 2014, but well over 200 more were dressed up for the event according to Ray Whitcher, a Lecturer in Multimedia Design by day and Legion Ink Cosplay organizer by night.
“Cosplay is ever-expansive and constantly growing, with the hubs being Jo’burg and Cape Town. If you look at SA’s biggest Cosplay Group, Cosplay SA, they have 1, 485 members, but we’re quite sure there are more than that. Its growth over the past 10 years has skyrocketed. We used to see all of 10 people at most events, and the same people at that, but now there are hundreds in each city. I’d go so far as to say that a lot of conventions pull audiences because of cosplay. There’s something about the uniqueness, the expression and the exoticism within the hobby that has a constant pull on audiences.”
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“It’s also a way of celebrating a love of a character from pop culture, be it Star Lord from the recent Guardians of the Galaxy film, or Hatsune Miku from the Volcaloid music series instead of simply  consuming merchandise or YouTube videos. Then, of course, there’s the international proliferation of cosplay, with shows like Heroes of Cosplay bringing the hobby into mainstream entertainment.”
“Interestingly, not all of the demographic revolves around teens and those in their early 20’s – we’re seeing quite a large group of over 30 cosplayers joining in too, as well as pets, younger children and everyone in-between.”

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’Cos We Play

Two young Capetonian entrepreneurs, Mark Bosman and Jesse Hemson-Struthers, saw the good side of gambling on the streets of London. It inspired them to bring a fresh approach to South Africa through BetTech Gaming.
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In 2009, while the world was experiencing a credit crunch, Bosman was a business development manager and had been in that industry for about 10 years, while Hemson-Struthers was a university drop-out and entrepreneur. Both were looking for new opportunities to make money in an environment that wasn’t very promising. They met when they were in high school in Cape Town and their paths crossed again in London.
“I had been involved in the property industry at that stage and it was obviously not doing well. We wanted to come back to South Africa and do something which would be a sustainable business and would survive the recession,” says Hemson-Struthers.
At the time, he was running an online marketing business for the property industry in Spain, but the market was slowing down drastically. Hemson-Struthers was in Britain trying to keep the business going.
It was then that the duo put their heads together, throwing around ideas that ranged from starting an online nappy business to an alcohol distribution company. They identified a sustainable business in the online sports betting industry in South Africa thanks to Hemson-Struthers’ background in e-commerce.
He had previously founded SAcamera in 2004 and it became the country’s biggest online store for specialist photographic equipment and accessories. SAcamera had distribution networks throughout Southern Africa and a physical showroom in Cape Town.
“In the beginning we funded everything ourselves off the website, set up supplies ourselves, picked up camera’s from suppliers ourselves, delivered them to the post office and then built it over a couple of years to being a retail and an online store,” says the 31-year-old.
“It was a hobby and a way for me to make money when I was young. I dropped out of university after a year into SAcamera because it was actually taking off and I wanted to focus my energy there.”
In 2012, SAcamera was acquired by MIH Internet Africa, a subsidiary of Naspers, one of the world’s largest internet firms.
MIH integrated SAcamera into its e-commerce site, Kalahari.com. The acquisition allowed Hemson-Struthers to focus more on BetTech Gaming which he founded in the midst of the recession while he and Bosman were in Britain.
“Sports betting and casinos are a culture and a way of life there. We saw some exciting stuff we wanted to do in South Africa. We came back and raised some institution money through 4Di Capital,” says Bosman.
“It was a whole process which we ran through South Africa since 2009, essentially building a product, getting it nationally licensed through the national gambling board. We’ve been selling our products since 2011 and we’ve got nine platform clients now who use our software and services.”
When Bosman and Hemson-Struthers started BetTech Gaming they spent around two years trying to understand products, markets and their systems and trying to clarify what it is they were trying to build. The founders conceptualized a business for two years until they were able to make money from it before going public.
Today, BetTech Gaming develops gaming software that can either be white-labeled or used for trading sports betting positions through its platform. It started off as a sports and horseracing wagering module and has since evolved into a business that includes casino, virtual and lucky number based modules across the web, mobile and retail channels. The business allows media partners to have their own betting brand that BetTech operates.
“We are a solution provider. It’s not just about providing software. We have a full suite of products and services. For instance, if a company like SuperSport in South Africa wanted to launch a sports betting business, we’ve got the resources to run the entire business for them, software, trading, content, risk management, client support, the IP management and full works and the partner who owns the business literally just markets it,” says Bosman.
The 31-year-old Bosman is responsible for managing the marketing, business development and operational side of BetTech Gaming. He is an entrepreneurially-focused marketing strategist having worked in the fast-moving consumer goods industry and the business development position for several other companies.
Having started three other businesses, Hemson-Struthers is an entrepreneur at heart and relishes the challenge of establishing new ventures and spending hours to improve it. Bosman is similarly enthusiastic, adding that BetTech is their passion. It’s their baby and they want to see it through.
“When you start a business like we did, it requires about 15 hours a day. You never stop thinking. The job is never done,” says Bosman.
“Being an entrepreneur, you have to create something out of nothing. So it’s about building a product which you see the market needs and then going out and selling it to the right consumers and in some instances you need to convince them of the new product which they might not know they need yet.”
They hope to be South Africa’s premier online and mobile sports betting brand and are branching out into the rest of the continent. Hemson-Struthers says they already have clients in Uganda and Tanzania, will soon launch in Kenya and are eyeing Nigeria. They have also launched the world’s first licensed Bitcoin sports betting operator, BetVIP.
Following their experience with BetTech, Hemson-Struthers advises new start-ups to get their products into the market as quickly as possible and at a minimum cost. This allows for feedback from the market, more testing and time to refine the product.
“I would almost say that if you look at a 100 percent of your budget, you want to hold back as much as 70 percent for marketing. People don’t fully understand how much money it takes to get a business, whether it’s a B2B or a B2C business, out there.”
Sage advice from a young entrepreneur.

Bet On Them

Forty years ago, if someone started a video game development company in Africa, investors would laugh him out of court. Today, America, Europe and Asia have turned the video gaming industry into a sub-culture worth billions of dollars, with millions of players worldwide.
In 2008, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) reported a growth of $11.7 billion from video game software sales in the United States. In South Africa, the Xbox 360 Console sold an average of 3,000 units per month as of October 2006. According to Core Gaming, a South African Nintendo distribution company, the Wii console sold around 4,850 units per month by October 2007. The South African gaming industry grew to the R1.7 billion ($198 million) mark in 2011, according to the GfK Group.
There has been a lot of controversy about who created the first video game. In 1948, Thomas T. Goldsmith Junior and Estle R. Mann patented the Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device. It required players to overlay pictures of targets, such as airplanes, in front of the screen, making the term video game redundant.
By the 1950s, video game development became more popular. In 1952, Alexander S. Douglas, a computer science professor, created a version of Tic-Tac-Toe, which is rumored to be the first graphical computer game because unlike Goldsmith and Estle’s device, images were displayed onscreen.
In 1958, William Higinbotham, an American physicist, created Tennis for Two. Four years later, Steve Russell, a MIT scholar, spearheaded the team that created Space War.
Jonathan Musa, an avid gamer, remembers playing Pac-Man in the late 1980s. He owned an Atari console, which was operated by a control pad with a protruding joy-stick and one button.
“You could only play it for 30 minutes before the adaptor overheated,” says Musa.
His admiration for games was passed on to his younger brothers, Paul and Anthony, who were born shortly after the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) outpaced the Atari in the early 1990s. The games were sold in the form of cartridges. The boys were introduced to the Sega Mega Drive games, which hit Kenyan shelves in the mid-1990s. Japan released the console in 1988 and the Sega Genesis, took the American market by storm the following year.
Musa was still enjoying the Sega Mega Drive when the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super NES) was released soon thereafter. Imagine Game Network (IGN) reports that the console has sold more than 49.1 million units worldwide since its conception.
In 1994, the Japanese company released the Nintendo 64 (N64), named after its 64-bit Central Processing Unit, which rivaled all other consoles. The N64 sold 32.93 million units worldwide and was named the 9th greatest video game console by IGN in 2009. Sony released the Play Station on December 31,1995 in Japan; it came to Kenya the following year.
Due to the high cost of Play Station games, piracy became rampant. A popular trend known as hot-swapping gave the market its hardest blow. The process entailed loading an original Play Station game and then quickly swapping the disk for a pirated one once the Play Station logo appeared on the television screen. In Kenya, gamers who wanted to save money would buy one original game and several pirated ones. Video gaming is a lifestyle for some. The Xbox 360 and the Play Station 3 (PS3) have an internal cooling system so that gamers can play for hours on end. On weekends Anthony plays Battlefield, a first-person shooter (FPS) in 1080 pixels on a High-definition flat screen; 64-bits seems like joke now that the PS3 is compatible with Blu-ray. The current generation of videogames has left veterans awestruck in its wake.
Sony and Microsoft have established social networks on their online platforms. Players are represented by glowing dots on a world map; South Africa is the brightest country on the continent.
The video gaming industry has shifted to a mass market model. According to Video Game Charts, Nintendo’s Wii console sold 95.85 million units worldwide as of March; while Sony’s PS3 sold 63.9 million units; Microsoft’s Xbox 360 sold 67.2 million units in April.
The real-time data from first-person shooters is mindboggling: millions of people play Call of Duty at any given time.According to Activision, one of the world’s leading producers of video games, 1.2 trillion virtual bullets have been fired since the game hit shelves. On August 3, 2011, the company confirmed that the game had sold more than 25 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling game in the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe.
For the gaming industry in Sub-Saharan Africa, the proof is in the pudding. Stores like GameStop and Toy World have found the gaming industry to be very lucrative. The moment a popular game hits shelves, leaflets are distributed to shopping complexes. According to Toy World, Call of Duty is one of Kenya’s best-selling first-person shooters.
Today, your 12-year-old son is giving tactical commands in your living room. His friends are part of an elite squadron of soldiers, fighting a war on the Caspian border. Your neighbors are managing your favorite football teams. And your daughter is playing lawn tennis in the living room. Thanks to companies like Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, millions of people around the world can do this from the comfort of their homes. Africa has yet to capitalize on the video
game market.

Tag: Gaming

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