At GDC 2026, Room 3002, West Hall. Talk starts at 11:50.
Decolonizing Play and the Rise of African Game Development (2013-2026)
Presented by Eyram Tawia

Eyram Tawia returns to GDC with a powerful update on the African games industry's growth and transformation since his landmark 2013 talk. Drawing on over a decade of studio leadership, teaching, and research, Tawia explores how African creators are redefining game narratives, partnerships, and education—fulfilling and challenging earlier predictions. This session dives into concrete successes, ongoing challenges, and the meaning of "decolonizing play" in a global industry. Attendees will gain practical strategies from African studios' experiences, insights into new talent pipelines, and a candid look at the future of collaboration between the continent and the world. Essential for anyone interested in global markets, diversity, and new creative frontiers.

Notes:

• Returning talk from 2013
• LetiArts founded in 2009
• Focus on interactive african content for a global audience
• In 2013, they made the prediction that Africa will become a force in global games.
• Thought that there would be local ip with global reach.
• At the time, less than ten studios on the continent.
• Patchy internet, weak infrastructure.
• Studios formed, global deals, academic courses, vr labs, etc
• They think africa made it
• Now there are 250 studios across the continent.
• In 2024, mobile game revenues for african studios exceeded 200m and is projected to reach 1b.
• Africa Games Week conference in Cape Town launches in 2019
• Covid accelerated africa into the gaming market, due to growth in african gaming consumption
• Rise of joint efforts in 2022 like the Pan Agrican Gaming Group
• 2024, African esport teams compete in international esport competitions
• 2025, African Gaming Market surpasses $2b
• Speaker doesnt even need to manually call up friends to find out revenue anymore.
• In 2022, market value was around 0.8b, and 2024 forecast was 1b, but it was actually 1.8b
• Most of the african games are on mobile platforms.
• Notable games from africa
  • Mekan Games ThePresident
  • Free Lives Broforce
  • Many games with millions of downloads
• Rise of partnerships with other successful games
  • LetiArts did cultural consulting for Valorant
  • EA Sims 4 with the Pan Africa Gaming Group
  • etc
• Africa now features in every major global gaming summit, like GDC, Tokyo Games Show, The Game Awards, etc
• IP is still centralized in Western hands
• Funding and distribution gaps remain
• There are only three places with the potential for 1b+ players: India, China, and Africa
• Africa is very fragmented
• We need to design with Africa, not about Africa.
• Valorant casting in Ghana captured truth, not imitation
• Cast locally.
• Teach students to design heroes they can believe in.
• Professors should not always come from IT
• Aliens should not always attack the white house, they should attack Africa too! Africa has powerful leaders too.
• Lets build a model where everyone wins
• There was some controversy about relooted's authenticity, but lets judge games by how good they are.
• IP ownership should be shared instead of just outsourced
• Treat cultural review as a production milestone
• Africa is not the only place in the world rising to the global stage

Question:

• As an indie dev, what is a good way to make sure it is authentic, where do you go to find people to work with?
  • You need to find a researcher who knows about the area you are interested in representing.
  • You can at least reach out to LetiArts, because they have connections
• When telling engaging stories that might be uncomfortable, what is the best way to approach that?
  • It is challenging because you cannot please everyone. Use age ratings to gate content.
  • Look for professors and researchers that can take the blame, who will vet your game. Hide behind them to tell authentic stories! involve academia and larger studios.
• How would one get involved in working on an African project?
  • Some african companies do remote internships, like LetiArts.
  • African companies hire from all over the world too.
• What is your opinion on outsourcing? Is it worthwhile, or do we need more african-first stories.
  • It's in the middle. It's a good start.
  • Outsourcing will remain, but we need more impact too.
• How often do people work remotely across the continent? Have there been cultural challenges because of Africa's fragmentation?
  • Three timezones, infrastructure, power cuts
  • if you need to invest 1m, you need 200-500k more due to these challenges.
  • Things are getting better.
  • Lots of remote work across Africa
• What kind of issues do you encounter with foreign, unknown characters. How do you market a new superhero without compromising culture?
  • "Cross-media onset"
  • We believe that when you use different mediums to communicate a new superhero, you can reach more people.
  • When you see a cool character in a movie, you might want to read about it.
  • The hook pulls you in to read more
  • make the product good.
  • Just make the game good, people will fall in love with it. No one will care if it is from Africa.
• How do you feel about african representation in western media like the kilmonger cut from black panther?
  • I was shocked when black panther got so much attention, no one paid attention until marvel used their marketing budget to push black panther
  • The money was with Marvel, not with the continent
  • The initiative was good, but you need to work with the locals. Film with the locals.
  • Politics change how stories are told
• What things have been put in place to expand education, to help young people?
  • Until africa embraces education in tertiary/university education, the industry will be held back.
  • Using a locally developed curriculum for a gaming track at a computer science degree (?)
  • Figuring out how to incubate developers to get them from itch.io to making money on Steam