Ten African game studios, $1 million, no strings on their companies: Google Play bets on the continent's storytellers

Google Play has named the ten studios in its first Indie Games Fund for Sub-Saharan Africa, announced October 28: they will share $1 million in funding that takes no ownership stake in their companies. Four studios are in Nigeria and four in South Africa, with one each from Ghana and Kenya. Their games are already reaching players: South Africa's Taxi Ranked, a minibus-taxi driving game, has passed 500,000 downloads; Ghana's Leti Games built Sweave, a rhythm game drawn from weaving; Kenya's Weza Interactive made Riziki, a rhythm adventure set to Afrobeats and Amapiano; and Nigeria's Deluxe Entertainment Studios set its platformer Rasta Santa in Lagos. Individual awards run from $50,000 to $200,000, for studios of up to 50 people that have already launched a game — builders, backed to build bigger.

SDG 8 · Decent work and economic growth — Mechanism: funding & finance