Oh please don't tell me that game development is not "lucrative". In fact at a time like this, the game development platform is one of the most profitable, because most of your potential players around the world are just sitting at home doing nothing (due to COVID-19). In the early days of the Appstore and Playstore, It was very easy for your app to go viral, even if it is a paid app. But now, as newer monetisation models are introduced, selling your game has proven to be a difficult nut to crack. I'm pretty sure there are a lot of Nigerians with jaw-dropping ideas for games, but just don't know how to execute them. Today, We will be taking a look at the top 4 reasons why there aren't many game programmers in Nigeria, and why most Nigerian Game Devs give up after publishing their first game to the Playstore/Appstore.

1. Lack of Marketing Skills/Strategy
A lot of game programmers think that the moment they publish their game to the Appstore, then they will become a millionaire. We all know that is not true, in fact let me break it to you, you probably are not going to make a million dollars from your first game, but that should not let you down. You need to think of a marketing strategy to let people know about your game. In order to make a killer game, you have to sit down and watch your opponents in the platform. For example, if you are working on a first-person shooter, then study other FPS games out there on the Appstore/Playstore are try to figure out their weaknesses. Remember the game flappy bird? Yeah that game was hugely popular around 2014, at a point the developer was making about $50,000 from the game each day. When Flappy Bird was released, it was given a low rating, A lot of people complained that it was rigged and too hard. But things changed after the popular YouTuber, PewDiePie reviewed the game and complained about how difficult the game was. But believe it or not, that made Flappy Bird popular. Flappy Bird introduced the world to a whole new genre of games, Hypercasual games. Flappy bird was not popular because, It had the best graphics, in fact, the pixelated art in the game was a turn-off for most people initially. Flappy Bird grew in popularity, because a popular YouTuber reviewed the game. In order to make all the effort you put in your game seem worthwhile, you need to figure out how to market it. If you got the budget, then advertise your game on Instagram (not Facebook , because no one really uses Facebook these days). You can advertise with Google and other and networks, get social.media influencers to begin to talk about your game. Advertising is not enough to boost the number of downloads for your game. There are other factors like ASO(App store Optimization) which works like SEO, The ratings your game has, when your game was last updated, etc. Of course if you are low on budget, you can use the $0 Marketing strategy, but that is a topic for another time.

2. Starting too big
Now don't get me wrong, there is nothing about dreaming big. But mehn, Some Nigerians are too ambitious. You can't tell me you just finished learning C#/C++ and now you want to make 3D games like GTA, or Fortnite. These games were developed by huge companies with several professionals on the job, yet it took them several years to bring the game to life. You just finished learning C#? I know you have a lot of dreams but please cut your dream in half and please get your game finished. When you are done, you game might not be up to Appstore's standards but not to worry, you can publish it to popular websites made for indie game Devs like itch.io. If you need ideas for games you can head over to itch.io and join a game jam. Start small and grow big. Don't start with unity game engine, start with smaller game engines like Godot Game Engine, which honestly despite small size (about 30MB), The engine is still able to create better looking 2D/2.5D games than Unity and Unreal
. You can also tryout other less powerful engines like Game maker and Construct. These engines will help shape you and tell you what you are up against. Don't start by trying to make something as labour intensive as a game engine.

3. Lack of electricity
Honestly, as a game developer, a lot of your time will be spent looking at your computer screen trying to fix an annoying bug that is causing your game to crash. The electricity situation in Nigeria is nothing to.write home about, It is gradually improving though, I think a lot more could be done.

4. Being too local
One mistake game developers make is making their game too local. Now don't get me wrong, creating a game based on the African heritage is pretty cool, but you need to think beyond that. Remember that most players don't even speak English. So as you make your game try as much as you can to translate your game to other languages, so that players around the world will be able to enjoy your game without any language barriers. Don't limit the language in your game to English/Pidgin

Please free to add your thoughts too.

Eye-opening. Thanks for sharing this.

Lol, nothing much to say!

I'm just happy somebody gets me.

It's not bad to dream big, but you've to take life one step at a time!

Good piece....

Damnnnnn niggarrr
Isoright
Nice write up
Computer science student and programmers like us say well done ogbeni op

In Business world, marketing is key

k

AwOn BBN will not what to look at this one

I have a lot of cool concepts for educational games abeg halla me let's talk i do designs so we can work

Well said

Work towards being like tencent

great share

If I have the grace to come back to this world again.

I will Always be a Developer

great piece..thanks

Quite informative

Nice write-up!

Game development is another sector that can be rucreative.
Talking about marketing your games, branding helps equally. Especially the visual side.
Any product that wants to sell should be appealing to the target customers. Eg. The owner should invest in getting a good logo Branding for the product.
I design classy logo for your brand. Doubt me? Check my portfolio below.

Talk24:

This is a good guide. Kudos.
But your point number two, what if while trying to start small you end up giving out your idea for someone else to cash out big?
In my opinion here if one has such lofty ingenious game idea he or she should reach out to those who can and sale the idea,but must do that with a good legal representative that knows how to contract well.

Still thinking, or maybe we should create buhari as the Arthur, while shekau will be the boss.

Talk24:
Oh please don't tell me that game development is not "lucrative". In fact at a time like this, the game development platform is one of the most profitable, because most of your potential players around the world are just sitting at home doing nothing (due to COVID-19). In the early days of the Appstore and Playstore, It was very easy for your app to go viral, even if it is a paid app. But now, as newer monetisation models are introduced, selling your game has proven to be a difficult nut to crack. I'm pretty sure there are a lot of Nigerians with jaw-dropping ideas for games, but just don't know how to execute them. Today, We will be taking a look at the top 4 reasons why there aren't many game programmers in Nigeria, and why most Nigerian Game Devs give up after publishing their first game to the Playstore/Appstore.

1. Lack of Marketing Skills/Strategy
A lot of game programmers think that the moment they publish their game to the Appstore, then they will become a millionaire. We all know that is not true, in fact let me break it to you, you probably are not going to make a million dollars from your first game, but that should not let you down. You need to think of a marketing strategy to let people know about your game. In order to make a killer game, you have to sit down and watch your opponents in the platform. For example, if you are working on a first-person shooter, then study other FPS games out there on the Appstore/Playstore are try to figure out their weaknesses. Remember the game flappy bird? Yeah that game was hugely popular around 2014, at a point the developer was making about $50,000 from the game each day. When Flappy Bird was released, it was given a low rating, A lot of people complained that it was rigged and too hard. But things changed after the popular YouTuber, PewDiePie reviewed the game and complained about how difficult the game was. But believe it or not, that made Flappy Bird popular. Flappy Bird introduced the world to a whole new genre of games, Hypercasual games. Flappy bird was not popular because, It had the best graphics, in fact, the pixelated art in the game was a turn-off for most people initially. Flappy Bird grew in popularity, because a popular YouTuber reviewed the game. In order to make all the effort you put in your game seem worthwhile, you need to figure out how to market it. If you got the budget, then advertise your game on Instagram (not Facebook , because no one really uses Facebook these days). You can advertise with Google and other and networks, get social.media influencers to begin to talk about your game. Advertising is not enough to boost the number of downloads for your game. There are other factors like ASO(App store Optimization) which works like SEO, The ratings your game has, when your game was last updated, etc. Of course if you are low on budget, you can use the $0 Marketing strategy, but that is a topic for another time.

2. Starting too big
Now don't get me wrong, there is nothing about dreaming big. But mehn, Some Nigerians are too ambitious. You can't tell me you just finished learning C#/C++ and now you want to make 3D games like GTA, or Fortnite. These games were developed by huge companies with several professionals on the job, yet it took them several years to bring the game to life. You just finished learning C#? I know you have a lot of dreams but please cut your dream in half and please get your game finished. When you are done, you game might not be up to Appstore's standards but not to worry, you can publish it to popular websites made for indie game Devs like itch.io. If you need ideas for games you can head over to itch.io and join a game jam. Start small and grow big. Don't start with unity game engine, start with smaller game engines like Godot Game Engine, which honestly despite small size (about 30MB), The engine is still able to create better looking 2D/2.5D games than Unity and Unreal
. You can also tryout other less powerful engines like Game maker and Construct. These engines will help shape you and tell you what you are up against. Don't start by trying to make something as labour intensive as a game engine.

3. Lack of electricity
Honestly, as a game developer, a lot of your time will be spent looking at your computer screen trying to fix an annoying bug that is causing your game to crash. The electricity situation in Nigeria is nothing to.write home about, It is gradually improving though, I think a lot more could be done.

4. Being too local
One mistake game developers make is making their game too local. Now don't get me wrong, creating a game based on the African heritage is pretty cool, but you need to think beyond that. Remember that most players don't even speak English. So as you make your game try as much as you can to translate your game to other languages, so that players around the world will be able to enjoy your game without any language barriers. Don't limit the language in your game to English/Pidgin

Please free to add your thoughts too.

Another and the main reason many people shy away from game dev is because it is freaking difficult. Coding alone is difficult let alone adding maths and physics to it.

Finally, in terms of lucrativeness, web development on average is more profitable than game dev in Nigeria and most countries worldwide.

Noted

Ok

Insightful

The spirit is indeed willing, but our aspiration is weak.

Thanks for the enlightenment

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