2025’s Gaming Landscape: Africa

Africa’s gaming market is young, fast-growing, and mobile-first. In this episode, host Alexandra Takei, Director at Ruckus Games, is joined by Cordel Robbin-Coker, CEO of Carry1st, and Temi Afolabi, a lead on XBOX’s Global Expansion team, to examine the opportunity and hurdles of scaling games in Africa.

They break down Africa’s demographics, monetization challenges, and infrastructure gaps. Cordel highlights Carry1st’s approach — aggregating payments across nearly 80+ payment methods and pairing African talent with global veterans. Temi emphasizes Africa’s creative potential in narrative design, a rising indie class, and shares why XBOX sees the African consumer as attractive.

The group compares Africa’s market trajectory to China’s, though key differences include Africa’s fragmentation across language, infrastructure, and regulation. On the development side, they explore co-dev, creator-first pathways, and the long-term role governments may play in accelerating industry growth to build a billion-person market and capitalize on untapped potential and a growing talent base.

We’d like to thank Neon – a merchant of record with customizable webshops optimized for conversion – for making this episode possible! Neon is trusted by some of the biggest names in gaming and can help you sell direct without the typical overhead. To learn more, visit https://www.neonpay.com/?utm_source=naavik

We’d also like to thank Levellr — the Discord community intelligence platform — for making this episode possible. Learn more about unlocking real-time community insights at levellr.com.

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Sound design by Gavin Mc Cabe.