
The Game Industry of South Africa - Impossible
http://www.polygon.com/features/2016/2/3/10781618/the-game-industry-of-south-africa
======
markatkinson
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
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...

~~~
my_username_is_
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
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).

------
GrandTheft
The best game to ever come out of South Africa is called "Grand Theft
Country". Absolutely brilliant game. The aim of the game is to become
President of the country with a few sub quests along the way:

\- Build a mansion/estate for a few million. Special side quest: include an
enormous swimming pool with the stated aim of it being used as a backup fire
hydrant

\- Buy a new Presidents jet for a few billion

\- Go on trial (and exonerated, of course) for rape and have unprotected sex
with someone that is HIV positive. Special side quest: claim that having a
shower afterwards would protect you from contracting HIV

\- Marry (at least) 6 women and garner a few mistresses along the way too

\- Preside over widespread institutional corruption. Special side question:
actually go on trial for bribery and corruption charges (and be exonerated of
course)

\- Devalue the currency as much as possible in the shortest possible time

\- Cause ongoing power outages in the economic hub of the country on a regular
basis

The game is built in a perpetual universe and the first of many expansion
packs is due for release soon.

~~~
fgandiya
Sounds like an interesting game. You'll love the game the country just north
of you made.

~~~
GrandTheft
That was the prototype demo. Once enough investors were fleeced, the Real
Thing was built.

------
ajuc
My first association with South Africa gamedev is great tutorials for computer
graphics by Denthor of ASPHYXIA [1]

It was one of the few free resources on this subject I could find at the time,
and I am forever grateful.

[1]
[http://archive.gamedev.net/archive/reference/articles/articl...](http://archive.gamedev.net/archive/reference/articles/article347.html)

~~~
song
Oh yes, those were amazing. This and then later on Nehe's opengpl tutorial
introduced me to graphic programing.

~~~
ilitirit
I think many people (myself included) spent ages recreating Nehe's rotating
cubes and then calling it a day. It was fun, but looking back I wish there
were more sources for learning actual game design.

Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure there were. I probably just wasn't
looking in the right places.

~~~
ethbro
_> Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure there were. I probably just
wasn't looking in the right places._

I don't know. I think a lot of us take for granted the amount of high-quality
digitized information that's network accessible now.

Before book scanners, before digital publishing, I remember everything on the
internet having to have been created specifically for the internet. Remember
the "amazing" early digital scanner / cameras? I remember seeing my first scan
(I think it was of a wine bottle label, oddly enough) and thinking "Wow,
that's something from the real world!"

------
guard-of-terra
"with some residents affluent enough to have time to spare to sit around
asking existential questions"

Since when does it require affluence? People did this a lot during the
collapse of USSR and at that time the usual monthly wage was $20.

------
ilitirit
This company was recently determined to be one of the best tech companies in
South Africa to work for:

[http://www.derivco.com/](http://www.derivco.com/)

[http://mybroadband.co.za/news/business/145115-what-its-
like-...](http://mybroadband.co.za/news/business/145115-what-its-like-to-work-
at-the-best-dev-house-in-south-africa.html)

~~~
sixhobbits
Derivco uses extremely underhand tactics to promote their image as a tech and
game dev company that is pushing boundaries and building exciting things.
Actually all they do is build small variants of the same online gambling games
using a Microsoft stack. My broadband is not that much better with their
"affiliate" articles which various companies pay them to publish and are just
advertising.

~~~
PvsNP_ZA
MyBroadband is a joke. Anyone who takes their news articles seriously probably
also reads the Daily Sun religiously.

------
pjmlp
I remember there used to be a very interesting e-magazine about game
programming in South Africa with Pascal (Turbo, Delphi, Free, Quick, ...).

Currently behind a corporate firewall so cannot search for it.

~~~
markatkinson
My first ever language was Pascal in grade 6... Singing birthday cake.

------
zingar
Working from home for foreign clients I'm a bit cut off from the rest of the
industry - and I don't work with games. Does the gaming industry have the same
white/male slant that the rest of the industry does?

Is there any reason to hope that the game industry being on the margins and
outside the old corporate structures that will appeal more to young black
South Africans?

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donretag
Not sure what the requirements were to be "South Africa’s first dedicated game
design program", but there is Friends of Design in Cape Town:

[http://friendsofdesign.net/](http://friendsofdesign.net/)

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vuyani
Im from Durban, South Africa, are there any cool start ups in SA on the rise
that shuld be taken noticed off?

~~~
richardkeller
Fellow Durbanite! First one I've spotted on HN. Unfortunately Durbs is a bit
sparse on the startup scene (at least using the HN definition of startups -
ones with a single focus). We're a small general dev shop, busy also busy
collaborating with another local company, working together on an elearning
solution. Watch this space!

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taliesinb
> Correction: This story originally featured photographs of Cape Town labeled
> as Johannesburg. We regret the error.

Classic.

