Exploring the Gaming Market In Africa

How the gaming industry has changed in the last decade

Bisrategebriel Fisseha
3 min readDec 29, 2020

The gaming industry incorporates the design, development, marketing, and monetization of video games. It is one of the economic sectors that is showing a soaring market value in the last decade. The growth of video games goes parallel with the significant change in the hardware industry. For instance, video games actually got started in the research labs of scientists running on low end devices instead of today’s worldwide availability and running on cutting-edge high-end devices enabling them to be at the forefront of computer technology. The gaming industry has passed through different generations, and now recently we are in the eighth generation. The new era has shown rising interests and advanced innovation allowing increase in complexity of production and attention in the industry.

According to the grand view research new report, the global gaming market size was valued at USD 151.06 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 12.9% over the next eight years. Technological proliferation and innovation in both hardware and software are expected to be the key factors driving the growth. Growing penetration of internet services across the globe, coupled with easy availability and access to games on the Internet, is also expected to keep growth prospects upbeat over the coming years.

The African gaming industry has been delivering exponential improvement in the past few years due to the fact that African studios are making new inroads with the launch of original, locally produced contents. In addition to this, government initiatives in the region are also adopting gaming solutions for educational purposes. These developments are providing opportunities for the gaming industry. Countries like Egypt, South Africa, Morocco are the top game developers in the continent. Ethiopia has joined the list being the 7th leading video gaming markets in Africa in 2018 by revenue playing its own role in growing the market of video games in the region.

Kukulu: An African Themed 3D Mobile Game from Ethiopia

The statistic by statista global survey present the leading video gaming markets in Africa in 2018, ranked by revenue. According to the estimates, Egypt was the top gaming market in the region, seeing as it generated 293 million U.S. dollars in the measured period. Morocco ranked third among African countries, with gaming revenue reaching 129 million U.S. dollars that year.

Proliferation in mobile technology, development of communication technology, increasing youth population, piracy, laws and regulations and concerns relating to fraud during gaming transactions are the key market trends in the industry which will impact the growth of the market.

Since the gaming industry is an emerging economic sector which also has overtaken the movies and music market in some countries it, should be given the right amount of attention so as to bring millions of dollars for countries per year in the African region.

--

--

Bisrategebriel Fisseha

Tech enthusiastic, passionate, and persistent software engineer who loves to explore skills required in the industry.