After months of intense work, KIRO'O GAMES has finally succeeded in unifying African mobile money in a video game. The Cameroonian studio and member of PAGG is thus positioning itself as the first player in the global video game industry to have done so in Africa.
A major turning point for the industry?
Mobile money technology in Africa is chaotic: each telecom operator (Orange, MTN, etc.) or aggregator (Flutterwave, Cinetpay, etc.) has its own rules, which even vary from country to country. This is why, until now, no major video game player operating in Africa had managed to integrate it into its monetization (Gameloft, Google, etc.), and the industry had come to accept that it would be impossible until there was a universal aggregator on the continent in 10 years' time. However, mobile money is the key to rapidly monetizing digital technology in Africa, as indicated by the GSMA report, where transactions reached $1 trillion in 2021.
KIROO GAMES' innovation:
In 2021, Kiroo succeeded in integrating mobile money in Cameroon with a conversion rate of 8% (which is 20 times the global standard). They therefore needed to successfully integrate other countries, which was no easy feat. After weeks of work, brainstorming, complex algorithms, and frustrations, the team successfully completed the internal testing phase of a technology that unifies the chaos of mobile money in Africa in a mobile game.
"We have created a blend of technology and standards to absorb the disorder of African mobile money. Every player in Africa will see the payment methods available in their country and enjoy a tailored payment experience without leaving the game. We are the first in the world to achieve this,"
explains MATIKE Oscar, Co-founder and Lead Webdev at Kiro'o Games. He goes on to say: "Before our innovation, a studio had to spend between two and four months integrating a new Mobile Money API and weeks on updates. We can now integrate in two weeks and make updates in a matter of hours once the API has been acquired. "
Impact of the innovation:
The Kiroo team will continue internal testing and roll out by the end of May to monetize more quickly in French-speaking Africa (Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Burkina Faso, etc.) and refine its process. But with such a technical milestone achieved, Kiro'o is expanding its sphere of possibilities:
- Purchase interest for the majors: Large studios looking to monetize in Africa will undoubtedly be very interested in taking advantage of the studio's progress, which says it designed it with a view to distributing it one day.
- The studio strengthens PAGG's position as a continental publisher: The technology could be distributed for other African studios to use in the medium term. This is a major asset for PAGG in its overall strategy to become the continental publisher par excellence.
- Technological advantage in the market: Kiro'o Games' technology is the result of a series of infrastructure layers previously put in place by the studio over at least three years, making it difficult to replicate for players who have not taken the same tortuous path.
Is this long-term strategy paying off?
For Olivier MADIBA (CEO and founder of the studio), "This is a major step forward for our studio and for video games on the continent, even if the road ahead is still long and fraught with obstacles. But those who observe us know how well Kiroo has excelled in the face of challenges for more than nine years. Today, we are committed to a plan to reach 40 million users and become the Amazon/Alibaba/Tencent of African video games by 2026-2027. And we will get there, one step at a time. By breaking down every wall in front of us."
Kiroo's paradigm of the house and the building: Short term VS long term.
In 2019, Kiroo explained to its investors that their studio would be built like a building whose foundations would take time. In particular, they had opted to diversify quickly and build infrastructure around their games (even going as far as catering). Several observers saw this as an unnecessary distraction for an African team with no former GAFA experience. But given the results that are starting to accumulate, Kiroo Games may well be on track to achieve its goal of creating a complete ecosystem beyond a simple video game studio.
Source: press release