African gaming stakeholders seek policy support 

Stakeholders in the African gaming industry have called for appropriate policies and general standardisation to aid the sector’s growth.

This was at the Gamathon 2024 conference in Lagos, themed: ‘Thrive’, organised by Africacomicade and attended by at least 13 African countries.

Founder, Africacomicade and Convener, Gamathon Michael Oscar, said the gaming industry is an emerging sector and that it is important to ensure its sustainability.

He urged the government to support the industry growth through funding, access and favourable policies, noting that with the government’s backing, they can attract more foreign investment and infrastructures.

Oscar explained that a major challenge faced in the industry is misconceptions as adequate information on the sector is not available and parents don’t like the idea of gaming.

“The global games industry is worth $200 billion bigger than the music and movie industry combined. So, you can imagine what a sustainable video games industry can do for our ecosystem,” he said.

He stated that the conference brought together stakeholders in the African gaming industry to collaborate and network on ways forward and explore the development needed.

Gaming Business Strategist, Johana Riquier, said that currently, animation provides the most significant opportunities for African creatives where they can explore and infuse their culture while creating.

Commenting on how to solve the issue of monetisation faced in the sector, Riquier recommended two approaches, the business-to-business (B2B) approach to push the games and business-to-consumer (B2C).

While stating that difficulty in paying and mindsets resisting the act of paying for games as other challenges, she noted the need to understand consumer behaviour and find out how they can have the will to pay.

African Gaming and Creative Industries Researcher, Mxolisi Xaba, highlighted the multi-sectoral, multi-disciplinary collaboration taking place in the sector, stating that such steps would lead to sustainable growth in the industry.

Xaba said that understanding the product and its intellectual property value is an important step towards monetisation of talents while urging creatives to understand their purpose, vision and passion, as identifying this would help them balance passion and business.