Maliyo, a gaming company recently launched in Nigeria, has unveiled a new mobile game to support the Nigerian basketball team at the London 2012 Olympic Games.
In an exclusive demonstration by TechLoy TV, Hugo Obi, the founder of Maliyo, showed different games that are available on the platform. Currently, the company has 10 games to its name.
Maliyo wants to be the Zynga of Africa. Zynga is an American company that produced famous social games such as CityVille and FarmVille. The Nigerian company wants to occupy that space in Africa.
Nija Hoops is a game that is created to support the Tigers, Nigeria’s basketball team, at the Olympics. It was launched over a week ago.
Maliyo is built around the philosophy of games for Africa by Africans. Originally, the company launched its services with six games in May and has since launched four more.
“Our games are inspired by the ordinary folks in Lagos Nigeria and the Diaspora who yearn for more engaging, localized content,” Hugo Obi stated during the launch of the company.
He added that the global sensation of Nollywood and Nigerian music coupled with fast mobile and Internet penetration given the massive adoption of low-priced smartphone devices all show the market demand locally and in the Diaspora is mature for such gaming content.
“The industry will only grow,” he said.
Some of the games included in the Maliyo portal include: Mosquito smasher a game about exterminating mosquitoes, Naija Hoops a basketball game, My village, Football golie, Aboki for archery , Okada ride, Kidnapped, The Tribes, Adanma and Class fight.
Recently, a South African based mobile gaming company opened its offices in Nairobi, Kenya offering localized mobile games such as Haki.
In March this year, a gaming app by Steven Mugo won the first edition of Nokia Ingite Hackathon with his football game for the NSeries, Spot Kick.
Local content demand is on a rise in Africa and many techies will have to branch out to provide relevant gaming solutions for the continent.
