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Speaker 1: The Money Show How I make my money.

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Speaker 2: Twenty five minutes now to eighth the time. So I

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Speaker 2: don't know if you have teenagers in your life, but

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Speaker 2: if you do, you've probably shouted at some point get

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Speaker 2: off that device, by which I mean some kind of

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Speaker 2: device on which they're playing games, so you can play

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Speaker 2: them on your phone. You can spend a lot of

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Speaker 2: money on a console like a PS five or a

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Speaker 2: Nintendo Switch or an Xbox. You can spend even more

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Speaker 2: money and something actually called a gaming PC comes with

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Speaker 2: a keyboard. Now, your children might be very good at

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Speaker 2: these things. I don't know if you think they could

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Speaker 2: make the careers in it, but I wouldn't be surprised

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Speaker 2: if they think they can. Somebod who's been able to

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Speaker 2: make a career in this and in our gaming economy

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Speaker 2: is Raymond led Waber, currently the CEO of I think

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Speaker 2: Gaming and Raymond a good evening to you. When I

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Speaker 2: last properly played a video game, this is what they

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Speaker 2: sounded like. Mario Brothers, or so I'm told. I think

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Speaker 2: my memory says, was probably a Commodore sixty four in there,

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Speaker 2: Raymond and Warber, good evening. You're involved in something a

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Speaker 2: little more sophisticated than that.

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Speaker 1: Good evening, Stephen, thank you very much for having me.

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Speaker 1: And yes, I am living my dream at the moment,

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Speaker 1: building a career doing something that I've loved as a kid.

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Speaker 1: And so it's a real privilege for me to be

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Speaker 1: working in this wonderful video games industry and particularly trying

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Speaker 1: very hard to work on building the South African gaming ecosystem.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I think a lot of us, certainly as parents,

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Speaker 2: Raymond probably my age, but as parents, think of games

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Speaker 2: as sort of entertainment. You see it in a very

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Speaker 2: different way. And I suppose I can imagine also there's

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Speaker 2: a kind of snobbery maybe among a certain generation, my generation,

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Speaker 2: that there's some movies we see as high art. We

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Speaker 2: never think of a computer game as high art. And

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Speaker 2: yet two are we to judge that?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, video games is an art form. It's

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Speaker 1: a very you know, it's a digital art form. And

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Speaker 1: there's different types of games, similar to your example in

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Speaker 1: the film industry, right, there are very different types of films,

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Speaker 1: and so one certainly can look at it from an

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Speaker 1: entertainment perspective and obviously obtain entertainment value from a game.

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Speaker 1: There's people who will look at a game and look

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Speaker 1: at it from its artistic sort of like perspective, because

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Speaker 1: you know, when I look at games, and just like

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Speaker 1: many art forms, there's also soft power in there, right,

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Speaker 1: there's culture, there's an ability to influence people in terms

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Speaker 1: of storytelling. And so for me, yes, games are an

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Speaker 1: entertainment form, but they also a commercial enterprise. I mean,

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Speaker 1: just to give you an example, with just global stats, right,

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Speaker 1: three billion people around the world play video games, So

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Speaker 1: that's almost half of the world's population. And if you

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Speaker 1: look at the commercial value of revenues generated from this industry,

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Speaker 1: it's north of two hundred billion dollars, So money is

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Speaker 1: being made. And to contextualize that number because I like

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Speaker 1: the example of film, the size of the video games

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Speaker 1: industry globally is bigger than the music industry and the

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Speaker 1: music industry combined. So there's tons of opportunity in that space.

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Speaker 2: I mean, if you think about how big the movie

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Speaker 2: and the movie industries are, and that it's bigger than

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Speaker 2: both of those, I mean, it really is incredible. How

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Speaker 2: did you get into it? Were your parents nicer than

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Speaker 2: my children's.

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Speaker 1: So you know, I got into games by accident, To

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Speaker 1: be honest, I always loved playing games growing up. But

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Speaker 1: then I pursued a career that my parents obviously would

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Speaker 1: have channeled me into, which his accountancy. I'm a chatted

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Speaker 1: accountant by training, and I did my you know, articles

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Speaker 1: at PwC, then went into banking, and I was always

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Speaker 1: fiddling though, you know, like there's every entrepreneur knows that

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Speaker 1: there's certain things that you know, you could be in

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Speaker 1: a corporate but you're doing all these side hustles. And

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Speaker 1: so one of the things that I started in twenty

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Speaker 1: fifteen was a sports organization. I really loved sports. I

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Speaker 1: love football, so I started a nonprofit called duscin Nineine

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Speaker 1: whilst I was employed at UPSA and during the pandemic,

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Speaker 1: we couldn't run our traditional sports programs, and so we pivoted,

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Speaker 1: and we pivoted into esports, and now esports is competitive

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Speaker 1: video gaming. And during that time I realized that, you know,

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Speaker 1: there's a huge opportunit but a big problem. So less

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Speaker 1: than one percent of video game developers on the planet

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Speaker 1: are Africans, yet we make up, together with the Middle East,

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Speaker 1: the second biggest population of gamers around the world. So

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Speaker 1: that tells me we are consumers in this space. But

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Speaker 1: we do not produce video games. So I went into

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Speaker 1: games naively five years ago with the intention of building

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Speaker 1: African inspired video games because I saw a gap in

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Speaker 1: the market, which is the ability for us to tell

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Speaker 1: our own stories and have our kids play video games

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Speaker 1: made locally and create a platform even for our kids

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Speaker 1: and young people around the continent, because we are a

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Speaker 1: youthful population as Africa, and so we need to channel

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Speaker 1: this energy. And young people love games, they play them,

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Speaker 1: but they don't really realize and know that they can

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Speaker 1: also make them and run enterprises in the space.

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Speaker 2: So there's there all sorts of things in the IT industry.

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Speaker 2: When people talk about ecosystems, and the most famous one

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Speaker 2: sort of Silicon Valley, San Francisco, where so much of

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Speaker 2: the sort of personal computing revolution happened. Is our problem

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Speaker 2: that we don't have an ecosystem like that in Southern Africa,

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Speaker 2: where a place where people are sort of together and

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Speaker 2: interested in designing games that would create that kind of ecosystem.

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Speaker 1: Yes, that's definitely one part of the problem. There's multiple

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Speaker 1: facets to this challenge of the ecosystem. So certainly there

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Speaker 1: aren't clusters in Southern Africa where you could you know,

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Speaker 1: walk into multiple spaces their computers. There are people who

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Speaker 1: are like you, who think like you, who want to

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Speaker 1: make you know, games, whether it's as an art form,

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Speaker 1: as an entertainment form. And then there's also the perception

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Speaker 1: of parents that you know, parents see games as this

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Speaker 1: big distraction and they don't understand that, you know, there

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Speaker 1: is again a career that can be built in the space.

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Speaker 1: There's money to be made in the space, whether you're

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Speaker 1: making the game yourself or you are streaming. There are

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Speaker 1: so many avenues right like there are e sports players,

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Speaker 1: there's people who play video games and you know, the

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Speaker 1: prize pool is in the millions of dollars and they're

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Speaker 1: just playing a game. So there are massive opportunities, but

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Speaker 1: it's an industry that's misunderstood. In South Africa, we are

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Speaker 1: at an infancy stage in our ecosystem. There's just a

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Speaker 1: handful of studios locally that are building video games and

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Speaker 1: making money and sustaining themselves with sales of video games.

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Speaker 1: And then there are you know a lot more of

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Speaker 1: studios that are doing it as a hobby, as a

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Speaker 1: side hustle, but then they're doing something else to sustain

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Speaker 1: their lives. You know. So, yes, I think having a

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Speaker 1: cluster is important and that's something that we're working towards. So,

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Speaker 1: you know it, think gaming as a business. We make

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Speaker 1: video games, but then we also do this ecosystem development

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Speaker 1: work that we have seen if we don't do it,

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Speaker 1: our own company might not survive. Right. So we've met

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Speaker 1: with the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies and we've

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Speaker 1: sold them the importance of video games as a job

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Speaker 1: creation force, as a way for us to generate revenues

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Speaker 1: and have those revenues stay in the land, in the nation.

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Speaker 1: So there's an advisory committee that we've set up with

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Speaker 1: the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies to look into

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Speaker 1: this very problem that you're talking about, how do we

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Speaker 1: build a thriving equal system for video game producers.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so when you have a movie, and even in

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Speaker 2: the music industry, I kind of understand the different roles.

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Speaker 2: So you'll have actors, you'll have a scriptwriter, you'll have

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Speaker 2: a director, you'll have makeup artists, you'll have the crew,

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Speaker 2: all of that. In a video game, what do you need?

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Speaker 2: And I presume that some of the bigger players, like

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Speaker 2: Electronic Arts or whatever, will have all sorts of different

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Speaker 2: roles that people play. What would be some of those

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Speaker 2: roles that you know, younger people or anyone could start

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Speaker 2: to consider what would be the roles that people play

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Speaker 2: that go into one of these big sort of production

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Speaker 2: video games.

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Speaker 1: So a video game in its essence is a piece

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Speaker 1: of software, so you would definitely need programmers. So there's

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Speaker 1: people who write a code to make a character jump

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Speaker 1: or make a character run. So you certainly need programmers

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Speaker 1: to deal with the it aspects of a video game.

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Speaker 1: But a video game is also art, so there are

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Speaker 1: characters that need to be drawn. That character needs to

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Speaker 1: be animated so that it moves, so you've got animators.

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Speaker 1: A video game is a story, so there could be

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Speaker 1: a narrative that is being followed throughout there's video games,

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Speaker 1: so you need writers and storytellers and the sound I mean,

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Speaker 1: you started your show with an audio clip, So there's musicians,

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Speaker 1: the sound designers, and then there are game designers. So

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Speaker 1: someone who thinks about how to put all of these

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Speaker 1: things into play. How do you make it fun? How

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Speaker 1: do you make people come back? What prizes are you

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Speaker 1: giving it? What point, what challenges, what puzzles are you

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Speaker 1: putting in? So there's a myriad of options and careers

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Speaker 1: that young people could consider in the space. And then

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Speaker 1: of course then there's people like myself who are in

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Speaker 1: finance and we look after how do we raise capital

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Speaker 1: for the work that we do, because just like in movies,

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Speaker 1: building games is quite a capital intensive industry. The type

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Speaker 1: of hardware that you need to build video games is

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Speaker 1: not cheap, and the time that it takes. It could

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Speaker 1: take a long time to have a game developed. And

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Speaker 1: then you've got lawyers that need to do the paperwork,

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Speaker 1: and then there's a marketing team that needs to ensure

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Speaker 1: that you know, everybody knows about the game. So it's

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Speaker 1: a full scale industry with tons of opportunities.

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Speaker 2: So I mean, is there scope for someone in South

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Speaker 2: Africa to do one of those jobs full time in

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Speaker 2: the gaming industry? Now I've I mean, I've never bumped

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Speaker 2: into someone who says, apart from you, I suppose who

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Speaker 2: says I work in South Africa, I work in the

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Speaker 2: gaming industry or someone I know does. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So I mean, like I said, the industry is still

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Speaker 1: in its infancy. So there's a handful of studios that

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Speaker 1: are doing it full time. The talent we have, I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, there's a couple of universities that are offering

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Speaker 1: game development degrees and they are churning out really talented

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Speaker 1: young people. And what we're seeing is that some of

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Speaker 1: those people then find work overseas. I mean, one of

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Speaker 1: our amazing, amazing game designers just resigned from our studio

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Speaker 1: last month to work for a firm based in Saudi Arabia.

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Speaker 1: But he's working remotely. And so we've seen a lot

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Speaker 1: of demand for talent from South Africa abroad in the

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Speaker 1: video gaming space. And as we build our industry, I

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Speaker 1: can see in the next five ten years lots more

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Speaker 1: opportunities for young people to do this thing full time.

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Speaker 2: And it requires quite a few things. But one of

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Speaker 2: the things that just can't get around is your opening

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Speaker 2: comment about sort of Africa and the Middle East is consumers.

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Speaker 2: If the market is so big, you would think that

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Speaker 2: the games be tailor made to our market. Now, I

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Speaker 2: don't get the sense that they are, no.

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Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, that's that's a big challenge, and that's

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Speaker 1: where we see the gap, right and I don't I

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Speaker 1: wouldn't blame any studio for not even considering our narratives,

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Speaker 1: our stories, our cultures in their games, because if you

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Speaker 1: don't have representation, what you're talking to is an issue

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Speaker 1: of representation. You can't blame someone for not thinking about

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Speaker 1: your geography because they might not feel a connection to it.

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Speaker 1: They might not know it, they might not understand it.

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Speaker 1: If they do it, they might not also do it

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Speaker 1: you know, well, they might not do it in the

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Speaker 1: way that it's supposed to be done. So that's part

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Speaker 1: of the problem. That's why we need to ensure that.

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Speaker 1: You know, when a young person is telling their parents, hey,

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Speaker 1: I want to be a game developer, we don't discourage

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Speaker 1: them because we need that talentier so that we can

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Speaker 1: tell our own stories. So that's a big challenge. And

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Speaker 1: we've seen a studio also, I mean, like a good

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Speaker 1: friend of mine has developed a really fantastic game called Relooted.

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Speaker 1: Ben Mayer is from Yamacob and it's a beautiful game.

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Speaker 1: It's about reclaiming African artifacts from Western museums. It's an

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Speaker 1: important video game. So I would encourage everybody to check

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Speaker 1: it out. But you know, because it's different, it's unique,

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Speaker 1: it's telling our story. There is a certain demographic around

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Speaker 1: the world that is not pleased with that game. So

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Speaker 1: we also face these challenges when you're trying to build

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Speaker 1: something of your own that comes from from the continent

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Speaker 1: of Africa and you're putting it in the global market.

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Speaker 1: That tends to sometimes be that resistance because people don't

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Speaker 1: understand it. I mean, they're seeing black characters in the

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Speaker 1: game and for them it's an issue which we don't

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Speaker 1: really get and understand why that is happening.

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Speaker 2: Raymond duarbis theco of I Think Gaming Is with us

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Speaker 2: for another ten minutes on how I make my money?

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Speaker 2: How you do it in the gaming business? Minutes nowaday the.

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Speaker 1: Money Show, How I make my money?

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Speaker 2: Eight minutes to eighth the time we're talking about a

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Speaker 2: career in the gaming industry. Raymond ed Wabe is the

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Speaker 2: CEO of I Think Game and are Gaming and Raymond,

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Speaker 2: I do have to ask a question and I sort

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Speaker 2: of asked this with my parent hat on that I

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Speaker 2: think some people are kind of anti gaming because I

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Speaker 2: see it almost as addictive. And if you think of Fortnite, right,

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Speaker 2: for a lot of people, if you think of gaming,

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Speaker 2: you think of Fortnite, you try and get a child

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Speaker 2: of Fortnite. So it's being played live with lots of

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Speaker 2: other players, so you can't pause it. So for the teenager,

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Speaker 2: they're like, Dad, I can't pause this game, you can't

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Speaker 2: go back, And all the parent sees is the sort

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Speaker 2: of blood and guts. And I sometimes wonder if the

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Speaker 2: gaming industry, I mean, that's before I even think of

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Speaker 2: Grand Theft, Auto and all the other stuff. And I

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Speaker 2: appreciate that the you know, the movie world has that too,

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Speaker 2: but is that something that maybe the gaming industry could

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Speaker 2: think a little bit about.

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Speaker 1: That's a very good question, and I mean I think

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Speaker 1: that there are standards and regulations that ensure that, you know,

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Speaker 1: video games have age appropriate narratives, images, uh, you know, ideas,

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Speaker 1: because that is definitely a valid concern. But I see,

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Speaker 1: I think it's it's it's a very difficult thing to

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Speaker 1: control in someone's home because, you know, as an enterprise

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Speaker 1: making a particular product, you would be thinking about your

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Speaker 1: your particular idea and bringing it to life in a

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Speaker 1: certain way, and ultimately, once it gets into the market,

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Speaker 1: it would get into the market with appropriate age restrictions

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Speaker 1: and you would have agencies that would ensure that that

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Speaker 1: is indeed the case. And once you know it's being

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Speaker 1: played in the home, certainly certain devices, your PlayStations your

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Speaker 1: Xbox have parental controls that can ensure that you limit

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Speaker 1: the time that your child is on the device, you know,

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Speaker 1: and so ultimately the parent is responsible for the child.

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Speaker 1: But you are right in saying that you know that

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Speaker 1: there is that perception of what a gain could be

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Speaker 1: doing for young children. But again, just to contextualize everything, right,

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Speaker 1: like twenty percent of game players are minors, so it

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Speaker 1: is an important demographic. There are you know, tools and

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Speaker 1: controls to ensure that you can manage the amount of

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Speaker 1: time your child plays. But similarly, YouTube would have the

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Speaker 1: same problem, right, and film, like you said, would have

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Speaker 1: the same problem. TikTok would have the same problem. So

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Speaker 1: it's tough to manage these play platforms. But yeah, at

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Speaker 1: the end of the day, the parent has to do

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Speaker 1: the parenting.

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Speaker 2: Such an interesting stat when you said that only twenty

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Speaker 2: percent of the people who play on these a minus

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Speaker 2: or under the age of eighteen. I presume, and I

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Speaker 2: think automatically there's an assumption that most people who play

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Speaker 2: are young, but we know that's not true. And in fact,

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Speaker 2: I know at least one person who's a bit older

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Speaker 2: than me who will spend a long time on a game.

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Speaker 2: So I have a different question, Raymond, why is it

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Speaker 2: I mean, I've never really found playing these games interesting.

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Speaker 2: I can see that there art in many cases. I

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Speaker 2: can see they're clever. I can see that they're intellectual.

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Speaker 2: I can see that a lot of work by very

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Speaker 2: clever people has gone to them. I can appreciate the product,

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Speaker 2: but frankly, I'd rather read a book. And I don't

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Speaker 2: say that to be insulting. I'm asking a different question,

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Speaker 2: which is why do some people like games and some

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Speaker 2: people don't. I find that fascinating because I've come across

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Speaker 2: some people who really love them and some people who

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Speaker 2: just can't stand them. And it doesn't matter what the

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Speaker 2: game is. You know, it could be Tetris, it could

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Speaker 2: be Fortnite, but they still have that view.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, certainly, you know, the market has different

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Speaker 1: types of personas that are interested in the products that

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Speaker 1: we develop. You definitely have people, I mean, like myself.

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Speaker 1: I'm a golfer, for example, and I'm hooked on this

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Speaker 1: golfing game. I just can't put it down. I love

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Speaker 1: soccer plays you know FIFA a lot. So there's certainly

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Speaker 1: different types of games that appeal to your personality. And

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Speaker 1: the things that you like. So there's that connection on

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Speaker 1: that on that front, and certainly you would find people

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Speaker 1: who like indie games, so games that are very artistic

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Speaker 1: that are not too mainstream, and they will play those

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Speaker 1: games for days. And yes, absolutely, I mean then there's

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Speaker 1: a that there's a customer or you know, someone like

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Speaker 1: you who says, well, I'd rather read a book or out,

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Speaker 1: you know, rather watch a movie. And that's really our competition.

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Speaker 1: That's what we are competing with. We competing for your attention, right.

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Speaker 1: We work in the attention economy, and so if we

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Speaker 1: can grab your attention and keep you in our game,

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Speaker 1: then we would have designed a really fantastic game. If

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Speaker 1: we can't, that's you know, we go back to the

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Speaker 1: drawing board. But yeah, that's that's we compete with books

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Speaker 1: and music and you know, TikTok.

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Speaker 2: We've got We've got just a minute left. You are

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Speaker 2: very optimistic still about growth of the gaming industry here

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Speaker 2: in South Africa. So are you optimistic that people will

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Speaker 2: in a few years We'll see I will go to

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Speaker 2: a Brian bump it to people who say, oh I

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Speaker 2: work in the gaming industry in South Africa. For South

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Speaker 2: Africans producing Southern African content.

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Speaker 1: One hundred percent. I don't see the growth of the

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Speaker 1: industry really slowing down. I see more people playing more games,

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Speaker 1: and I think if we have the opportunity as Africans

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Speaker 1: to also contribute to these catalogs by building games that

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Speaker 1: represent us, games that are infused with our own stories,

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Speaker 1: our own culture, then definitely we will see even growth

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Speaker 1: on the African continent. And so yes, in a couple

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Speaker 1: of years you'll be at a Brye and you'll be

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Speaker 1: talking to multi billionaires that are making money from video games.

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Speaker 2: Well, now you're selling it. Raymond Ledwab, thanks very much,

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Speaker 2: really appreciate the time, the CEO of I think gaming.

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Speaker 2: Are you interested now in a nut your child in

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Speaker 2: that direction? Someone better