Gaming in South Africa

Living in South Africa is great!! I love the people and places but there is a downside... gaming.

For the past few months I have been experiencing some of the major downfalls of living in a country that has only recently started adopting technology in the realm of gaming, dealing with major online lag, games with "online only" gameplay and worst of all lack of support from american and eurocentric developers.

Although I speak personally I can only expect as a rational human being that there are more than just me that have and are still experiencing these issues. I'm sure some of you have experienced some of the following (albeit not with the same games) loading up a game of Blacklight Retribution only to have my ping twice and sometimes thrice as high as anyone else in each match, or constantly being kicked from a server because of a poor connection.

Source: rAgeExpo.co.za

Above: The NAG LAN at rAge 2004

To put things in perspective, South Africa dwarfs in comparison when it comes to spending on video games, because of this investment is much lower when it comes to providing the infrastructure and support needed for the proper growth and development of gaming in South Africa.

What this means is that games such as Titanfall (Which I was counting down the days till) are then cancelled for release here due to poor infrastructure available in our slice of the world.

Source: Maps of World

This is mainly due to the quick rise in the gaming community and availability of tech that makes creation of this type of media popular. Games Like League of Legends and Dota2 have become so popular that millions is up for grabs in various tournaments in the US. This years Dota2 tournament, The International 4, raised over $4 million in fan funding alone.

so... what is stopping us from having the same environment here in South Africa? Well... mostly e-tolls... psych no, the fact that there is so little infrastructure for community development (No I'm not talking about youth centres and stuff) things like stable fast internet, readily available and affordable gaming hardware and social support are very scarce. The fact that so little of the population take gaming a little more serious than just kids hobby means that there wont be significant investment until the "Gamer Generation" finally grows up to do something about the lack of community.

Even though there are some great endeavors like rAge and The O.C events which take place "regularly" we are still only catering for the few that can actually make to these events, rAge being Johannesburg exclusive and The O.C being Cape Town only.

What are your thoughts