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I live in Cape Town, South Africa (I am South African), and realized at an early stage, as a gaming enthusiast, that to get into game dev in this country you ne

I live in Cape Town, South Africa (I am South African), and realized at an early stage, as a gaming enthusiast, that to get into game dev in this country you need to start your own thing. I couldn't afford to do that so just ended up in a tech/dev role in the fintech industry. There is so much talent and drive in the youth of SA (and a significant gaming market, that is mostly ignored by the likes of EA, we don't get any servers down here :/ ), that has not been jaded yet. I am convinced it wont be long till lots of really awesome game studios start popping up... I am not sure what I am trying to get at here... Maybe that I want your money to start a game studio.

mark_integerdsv 11y ago
Howzit bru. I work at a tech startup in Cape Town (in the data analysis & visualization space.) In my experience the challenge is that the local market isn't supportive or capable of supporting in some cases, and breaking into the international market with the weak rand is a tough nut to crack when your competitors all have several hundred mil in investment (x 17 for the exchange rate.) So you sit with a product that fits locally, has some international potential but you can't really get enough sales locally to support an international launch and you kind of end up seeing the end of the runway whilst realizing that you're unlikely to have enough lift to get airborne by the time you reach it. I'm sure that with enough funding this isn't as much of an embuggerance. Any investors want to take advantage of the weak Rand? We have good devs and designers here, we speak English and we can get a lot done for about a 20th of what it would cost in the US...
- markatkinson 11y ago
  Lekker man! This is a much better analysis of the current environment I would say. Broforce did a lot better than I was expecting it to to be honest. I think I have just become jaded that SA wont ever have any successful game dev stories, so when I watched the trailers etc my mind automatically (and wrongfully so) just flips over to "Oh that looks cool, pity it will never make them any money." Maybe I should change that perception...
- my_username_is_ 11y ago
  Could the relative weakness of ZAR be a benefit for international investors? If I'm an American making an investment and I was offered identical investment opportunities in 2011 and today, the investment I make today is at a ~50% discount
  - zingar 11y ago
    We just have to figure out how to take advantage. I think the IT industry is better placed than any other given that we're not trying to build using imported materials (or at least, we can charge a lot more than the cost of our imported computers).
- progressive_dad 11y ago
  Someone should fly to Notch's fancy offices in Stockholm and convince him distribution channels are way more interesting than his next demo.
n1c 11y ago
Another Capetonian checking in, you should go to all the events they mention in the article. I've been to a few and they're great. Make some prototypes, make some games and hopefully the rest will follow!
- markatkinson 11y ago
  Nice! I must say we live in the most beautiful city in the world... Maybe I should attend them. I am quite busy at the moment working part time consulting, and trying to get my own thing off the ground, however I was working with a friend to try and get a game out. We had to put it on hold for now but he continued work on something else for a while: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opvWgUdwBVg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opvWgUdwBVg Think he made that in UE and Blender for the bear modeling. Pretty neat.
  - Cyph0n 11y ago
    Neat indeed! I really like the ominous vibe given off by the purple environment.
13hours 11y ago
Also from Cape Town, we build mobile products (apps are part of what we do). One of our first products was a mobile game (don't want to spam it here, PM me if you want a link), and we've built many products for both local and international markets since. We learnt a few things from it: - The SA market is much too small to make a return on the investment. - The international market is difficult to get into from South Africa. Marketing a game to the point where it makes a good return is expensive, even more so from SA. There are many people in Cape Town building games though, have a look at http://makegamessa.com/ http://makegamessa.com/ If working with us sounds more interesting than a typical fintech job, let me know and we can chat.

mark_integerdsv 11y ago

Howzit bru. I work at a tech startup in Cape Town (in the data analysis & visualization space.) In my experience the challenge is that the local market isn't supportive or capable of supporting in some cases, and breaking into the international market with the weak rand is a tough nut to crack when your competitors all have several hundred mil in investment (x 17 for the exchange rate.) So you sit with a product that fits locally, has some international potential but you can't really get enough sales locally to support an international launch and you kind of end up seeing the end of the runway whilst realizing that you're unlikely to have enough lift to get airborne by the time you reach it. I'm sure that with enough funding this isn't as much of an embuggerance. Any investors want to take advantage of the weak Rand? We have good devs and designers here, we speak English and we can get a lot done for about a 20th of what it would cost in the US...

markatkinson 11y ago
Lekker man! This is a much better analysis of the current environment I would say. Broforce did a lot better than I was expecting it to to be honest. I think I have just become jaded that SA wont ever have any successful game dev stories, so when I watched the trailers etc my mind automatically (and wrongfully so) just flips over to "Oh that looks cool, pity it will never make them any money." Maybe I should change that perception...
my_username_is_ 11y ago
Could the relative weakness of ZAR be a benefit for international investors? If I'm an American making an investment and I was offered identical investment opportunities in 2011 and today, the investment I make today is at a ~50% discount
- zingar 11y ago
  We just have to figure out how to take advantage. I think the IT industry is better placed than any other given that we're not trying to build using imported materials (or at least, we can charge a lot more than the cost of our imported computers).
progressive_dad 11y ago
Someone should fly to Notch's fancy offices in Stockholm and convince him distribution channels are way more interesting than his next demo.

n1c 11y ago

Another Capetonian checking in, you should go to all the events they mention in the article. I've been to a few and they're great. Make some prototypes, make some games and hopefully the rest will follow!

markatkinson 11y ago
Nice! I must say we live in the most beautiful city in the world... Maybe I should attend them. I am quite busy at the moment working part time consulting, and trying to get my own thing off the ground, however I was working with a friend to try and get a game out. We had to put it on hold for now but he continued work on something else for a while: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opvWgUdwBVg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opvWgUdwBVg Think he made that in UE and Blender for the bear modeling. Pretty neat.
- Cyph0n 11y ago
  Neat indeed! I really like the ominous vibe given off by the purple environment.

13hours 11y ago

Also from Cape Town, we build mobile products (apps are part of what we do). One of our first products was a mobile game (don't want to spam it here, PM me if you want a link), and we've built many products for both local and international markets since. We learnt a few things from it: - The SA market is much too small to make a return on the investment. - The international market is difficult to get into from South Africa. Marketing a game to the point where it makes a good return is expensive, even more so from SA. There are many people in Cape Town building games though, have a look at http://makegamessa.com/ http://makegamessa.com/ If working with us sounds more interesting than a typical fintech job, let me know and we can chat.