One of the highest grossing and growing fields currently on a global scale is gaming. A multi-billion-dollar industry that involves thousands of international companies and game development studios, pulling out all the stops and giving maximum effort to break barriers every time a new game is set to be released.
This created a fierce technological battle for the top spot. However, with the rapid growth of the industry, new horizons appeared as well. As cross-platform gaming unlocked the doors for a revolutionary advancement. Between interactive gaming consoles, highly-detailed computer games, lite mobile games, quick and fun internet flash player games, and many other platforms – a whole new world of ways to play came into existence.
However, why do games receive so much attention? Is there any truth to the idea that ‘Games are just for kids’? Well, this myth was busted in the 1980s as Apple, upon its development of its Macintosh computers since 1984, stated that the majority of the customers and end-users are adults. At the time, the Macintosh computer was a massive breakthrough.
However, when the video game company Broderbund introduced AirHockey in 1989, it was a totally different story. At that time, people learned of the importance and benefit of adding games to computers, and their effect on boosting sales largely. This inspired and resulted in the making of popular gaming consoles such as DreamCast SEGA and others. People realised that they can spend hours easily concentrating on a two-dimensional (2D) game with as little details as possible in our books today. However, back then those 2D creations were a shock to the public. Attempts to catch and shoot that duck had people hauling to local convenient stores so they can play and compete to see who scores the highest record. It was advanced enough to interact with a responsive artificial intelligence.
During its rise, the gaming industry was surrounded with much controversy. Parents claimed that playing video games is a main reason for their children’s poor school grades, which is a theory that had been quickly dethroned and scientifically refuted. In an article in the American Journal of Play (Fall 2014 issue), Adam Eichenbaum, Daphne Bavalier, and C. Shawn Green explain how playing video games can result in clear increase of brain activity, concentration levels and memory enhancement. In 2008, the US military began implementing gaming to training drills, including shooting angles to aid emergency self-therapy methods and improve sudden attention stimulus.
The gaming industry in Sudan is more advanced than some would think. There’s more attention to mobile games on Android OS mainly due to the fact that the majority of Sudanese mobile users prefer Android devices over other mobile operating systems. Some find Apple iPhones too costly to buy. Others grew weary of the difficulty and complexity of using other mobile operating systems and prefer to stick to what is known in the local market. The widespread of Android devices assisted in many mobile games especially customised for the platform to be developed, registered, and added to Google Play Store™. Android OS games are also easier to develop than Apple iOS or Windows as there are plenty of ways and emulators to test them on before publishing. The process of game development in itself is an extensive operation that requires long hours of coding and design, along with the necessity of having a fully equipped working crew.
To find out more about local interest in games in Sudan, a survey-based study that witnessed participation of 684 individuals showed that gaming is growing phenomenon in Sudan.
In response to the question, ‘Are you interested in video games?’
Among the group who responded positively to the question, 70 individuals were selected for more in-depth question. In order to see which types of video games are more preferred, the following were the results:
The last point gives a clear hint of how significant is the gap between Sudan and the world in terms of gaming competitions and participation. However, change has been taking place with initiatives such as Khartoum Game Jam, which is a game development hackathon that was first organised in 2018, sponsored and hosted by Goethe Institute, MTN Telecommunications Company and National Telecommunications Centre (NTC).
‘Khartoum Game Jam is a hackathon – a short-term event designed to tackle an issue technically and come up with innovative solutions – that was open for restricted participation to give developers a chance to function in teams and create games on their own, work their imagination, and get the public to know and recognise their skills. The focus was on developing Mobile games mainly for Android OS,’ said Mohanned Mohammed Ali, an experienced developer and software engineer, who was a member of the organising committee for Khartoum Game Jam.
Winning contestants received a cash prize and a trip to Germany with the organising committee where they got the chance to interact face-to-face with elite developers from well-known companies such as Ubisoft, Konami, and Electronic Arts EA. The purpose was to exchange knowledge, network, and attend a game exhibition in Berlin where well-known gaming brands showcased their projects.
Ali also expressed his surprise to see that Sudanese game developers are not that far from par. Despite the hardships and challenges faced with funding, exposure and mentorship, he assured that if the proper motivation and environment existed, impressive results will appear. There’s an opportunity for schools and universities to start introducing gaming to their curriculums to rapidly boost the gaming industry locally.
Nevertheless, the game industry in Sudan is taking baby steps to improve. Numbers of local developers and game development projects increase every day. Yet, there are challenges such as online payment and market restrictions that can hinder the process.
There is more work to be done in order to help developers and the entire industry have better exposure. ‘There are plenty of job offers that come our way and many developers don’t even know about them. This is due to lack of collective environments or developers remaining in the shadows,’ said Ali. ‘The second one is more common, as many of developers can have great potential but no one knows about them and they don’t share their work on proper platforms or at all. We are trying to fix this issue at the moment and we are using Sudanese Gamers Collective website as a medium to create room for communication and bigger reach for local developers. We are also working on sharing our projects on social media platforms under the name of the collective,’ he added.
A latest edition of Khartoum Game Jam (KGJ2020) is set to be held this year by what is now the Sudanese Game Collective (SGC) with the support of the Goethe-Institut Sudan. Applications closed on 5 August 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, KGJ2020 will be held online with slogan: ‘Together’. ‘Together regardless difficulties. Despite all the difficulties, people will always find a way to be together,’ said the team. This year, SGC has entered a partnership with the School Students Exhibition (SSE) of the University of Khartoum’s Faculty of Mathematical Sciences – a partnership which aims for it to be one of the best practical utilisations of KGJ.
For more information, visit Khartoum Game Jam’s Facebook page or website.
Tony Malik is a 27-year-old IT graduate of National Ribat University (Class of 2013), residing in Sudan and the UAE. His professional background includes marketing, IT, writing & translation, and business administration. He is a former writer for Sudan365.net and Goethe Institute-Sudan, and a member of German-Sudanese cooperation group.
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