Remember the days of Super Mario Land, a platforming video game developed by Nintendo for the Game Boy handheld game console? 

It debuted in Japan on April 21, 1989, in the United States in July 31, 1989, and in Europe on September 28, 1990. Super Mario Land marked Mario’s first appearance on the Game Boy and is the first true Mario game for the system.

Video games were introduced as a commercial entertainment medium in 1971, becoming the basis for a new entertainment industry in the late 1970s/early 1980s in the United States, Japan, and Europe. After a disastrous industry collapse in 1983 and a subsequent rebirth two years later, the video game industry has experienced sustained growth for over two decades to become a $11 billion industry, which rivals the motion picture industry as the most profitable entertainment industry in the world.

As affordable broadband Internet connectivity spreads, many publishers have turned to online gaming as a way of innovating. But unfortunately, Nigeria hasn’t had an effective and efficient broadband Internet connectivity that supports online gaming.

However, it seems that video gaming is gradually becoming the next big thing in Nigeria. Recently, I started watching gaming trends in Nigeria and have been following a few discussions about gaming in Nigeria. From the discussions, I noticed that Nigerians are very enthusiastic about video gaming, but face challenges with efficient broadband Internet connectivity that can support online multiplayer gaming.

One Nigerian who owns a gaming centre in Ado-Ekiti, which is focused on console gaming - PS2, PS3, etc thinks that “online broadband for gaming is not yet a reality in Nigeria”. In his opinion, “it is one thing for a teenager or child to talk their parents into letting them get a PS3 or Xbox 360. It is a totally different thing to get them to agree to sign-up for an expensive broadband connection along with that. Anyway, I think LAN gaming is a better way to go for Nigeria.”

I think I agree with him that LAN gaming would have been a better option for Nigeria, but my question is: Won’t you still need a high-speed internet connection in order to play games with online opponents?

A few months ago, Jon Gosier of Appfrica suggested a Pan-African Gaming Conference, which would be a massively local, massively multi-player Video Game LAN party similar to others like QuakeCon in the United States and DreamHack in Sweden. But, with the lack of console gaming equipments, he thinks that the event would have to largely revolve around open source games like Open Arena and FreeDoom.

In Jon’s words,

In addition to tournament-style game play, the conference would also have break out sessions devoted to game development, modding, hacking, breaking into the gaming industry as an African and more. There’d also be sessions on developing iPhone, Android and games for other handsets.

Could this probably work in Nigeria? Maybe. Maybe not. But for this to happen, there should be a gaming community in place now that would grow over the next couple of years to become a gaming industry with gamers, hackers, developers, etc.

Then there could be local competitions to encourage game development in Nigeria which could mean that we could have Nigerian participants in African gaming competitions and events in the future. I’m sure that huge telecommunications and technology companies such as Globacom and MTN will be willing to sponsor such efforts.

Meanwhile, it seems like game development in Nigeria is gradually becoming popular as GameLounge (see Facebook page), a gaming lifestyle and events company in Lagos, Nigeria recently held their inaugural gaming event called Champions Playoff Series 1 at Aqua 27 in Victoria Island, Lagos.

There was another gruelling contest between some extremely gifted game players at the CHAMPION’S PLAYOFF SERIES II, held at the same location on April 13th which crowned a new Emperor named Biodun, who beat all contenders including Champion’s Playoff Series I whiz-kid, Lekan.

Interestingly, I stumbled upon SomeKillGiants.com, a Nigerian gaming blog and in a recent post, Yegwa, one of the blog’s authors posted a video interview of one of the founders of GameLounge, Ayodele Oguntubi. You can also watch the video on Youtube here.

GameLounge is the largest professional video game lounge in Nigeria and targets approximately 35 million consumers in Nigeria who have a passion for playing video games as a competitive social activity. 

If GameLounge targets 35 million consumers in Nigeria, I think that’s more than enough to grow a gaming industry in Nigeria. Again, with other smaller communities growing in Ado-Ekiti, Port-Harcourt and other parts of Nigeria, we should be seeing the birth of a video gaming industry in Nigeria in the nearest future.

Note my words.