Draft:Video games in Africa

Video games in Africa is a sector that emerged from 1994, when the first independent studio in Africa, Celestial Games, established to South Africa. The sector then developed slowly with the establishment of Ubisoft in Casablanca, Morocco in 1998 and the creation of local companies such as Madiba Olivier, creator of Aurion: The Legacy of the Kori-Odan, by Wesley Kirinya who designs the first African 3D independent game, Adventures of Nyangi. ,, , or the Malagasy studio Lomay, creator of the racing game Gazkar. The first initiatives and the democratisation of smartphones and internet access then allow new projects to see the day.

History
The history of the video game industry on the African continent began in 1996 with the release on DOS by Celestial Games, the first African video game studio, of Toxic Bunny, the first African video game. This platformer puts the player in the shoes of Toxic, a mutant rabbit who seeks to find the person responsible for the chaos on Earth,.

Media and events
The city of Johannesburg, South Africa, hosts an annual video game fair called « rAge ».

There is only one magazine dedicated to video games and new technologies on the continent, NAG online (New Age Gaming online).

Industry
The few African publishers face piracy, financing and distribution difficulties, as well as a lack of competent personnel. Some games have nevertheless benefited from public support such as Aurion: The Legacy of the Kori-Odan, the game of the Cameroonian studio Kiro'o Games, which received the sponsorship of the Ministry of Arts and Culture of Cameroon.

In 2012, South Africa led the African video game economy, with a total turnover of 1.7 billion rand, and 3.5 million players, twice the turnover of music.

In the 2017 ranking of the world’s top 100 video game consumers in terms of income, Africa is represented by only 7 countries: Egypt (41), Nigeria (45), South Africa (54), Algeria (57), Morocco (59), Kenya (87) and Tunisia (89).

Practice and training
The practice of video games in Africa is quite singular since on the continent, at least in sub-Saharan Africa, it is practiced almost exclusively in specialized rooms, and on some targeted games only, because of the lack of domestic material.

In West Africa and Equatorial Africa, the market is smaller, there are very rarely game consoles, development was mainly oriented in the 2010s in the field of games on smartphones.

Jjiguene Tech Hub, an association of thirty volunteers (2015) founded in 2012 by Marième Jamme and training in computer science in Sénégal

A campus to train students in video game professions was created by Ubisoft near its Casablanca studio but was closed a year and a half later.

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