Video game makers from around the globe have converged on Cologne for the annual Gamescom trade fair – the world's largest gaming event, where new products are unveiled and investors connect with developers. Among the 1,500 exhibitors are a group of African gaming professionals showcasing games rooted in the continent's culture and history.
"Gamescom is the biggest gaming event in the world. We want to show the gaming community what Africa has to offer," said Eyram Tawia, CEO of Leti Arts in Ghana.
"It's so encouraging to hear gamers say they like that our video games are quite different from what's on offer."
He travelled to Cologne to present three mobile games, Africa’s Legends, Sweave and Puzzle Scouts, and offer play-testing sessions for an upcoming game, Karmzah, to be made available for download via the Steam online game platform.
"This is more than just an exhibition for us, it’s an opportunity to show that African stories and heroes belong on the world stage, and to build the collaborations that will make that happen," he said.
It's a sentiment shared by Mame Mor Kandji, the CEO of Amanirenas in Senegal, who is attending Gamescom for the first time.
"We are looking for publishers for our video games, entrenched in African history and culture," he told RFI. "We want our video games to become modern griots [a West African storyteller], and keep our oral tradition of storytelling alive through a different medium, a more modern one."
Among the company's games are Kikan La, devised as a quiz that challenges gamers' knowledge of major African historical figures, and Kankurang Land which immerses gamers in Africa's myths and legends.
"At Amanirenas, we develop games which have a cultural impact but can also be used in schools as an educational tool," explained Kandji.
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Lack of investment
Leti Arts is also at Gamescom looking for publishers, for its Karmzah video game.
"We are to meet with publishers like XBox, PlayStation, Bandai Namco... video game publishers interested in doing new things with African history and culture," Tawia told RFI.
The investors and publishers he has met so far have said they are impressed by the quality of his products, but they remain cautious about the profitability of the African gaming market.
In both Ghana and Senegal, the gaming industry finds it hard to attract local investors.
"The games we brought to Gamescom are developed by local talents, but local investment is still a challenge as Ghanaian investors do not understand the gaming industry," said Tawia.
Kandji hopes that Gamescom will open up new opportunities for his studio.
"It’s important to show the rest of the world who we are and what we can do. And our success will help convince the Senegalese authorities that they should invest in this lucrative industry," he said.
The gaming market in Senegal is worth more than €70 million, but according to Kandji, none of the gaming studios in the country enjoy a piece of the pie.
Both Kandji and Tawia said the French embassy was instrumental in providing support towards the gaming ecosystem.
In Senegal, the embassy partnered with a governmental organisation, while in Ghana the Alliance Française has partnered with Leti Arts to set up the first commercial virtual reality and gaming arcade showcasing exclusively African content.
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Skills gap
Tawia believes that Africa needs to overcome what he calls "a large skills gap".
"We, the studios, need talent to build games to compete globally. But we are catching up. At Leti Arts, we run [one of the] biggest internship programmes, across the globe. We have an average of 60 interns who are coming and going. Universities send students to us from all over the world – France, the US, the UK," he said.
He added that local developers learn from the interns, who in turn learn from the locals.
"We are building a pool of talented developers, story writers etc to make quality games. If we get a foreign investor or studio to invest us, this is going to create a major shift and help us create more talent and fill the skills gap we face now."
Africa remains a huge market for the gaming industry to conquer, with mobile gaming of particular importance, given that it is more accessible for many Africans than prohibitively expensive console or computer-based gaming.
