MAIN DISTRIBUTORS Core Gaming Systems, Nu Metro Interactive, Sterkenikor
TOP DEVELOPERS I-Imagine Interactive, Luma Arcade
PUBLISHERS WITH A LOCAL OFFICE
Airgames, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Sony Computer
THE FACTS Population: 48,810,427 Currency: Rand GDP (Per Capita): $8,066 Capital City: Pretoria (executive), Bloemfontein (judicial), Cape Town (legislative) Languages: Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Tswana, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu
ABOUT THE MARKET
SOUTH AFRICA is home to a games market that is growing steadily, predominantly driven by ‘core’ titles. The Top 20 is regularly dominated by safe, big name titles, with social and kids games generally appearing further down the charts. “South Africa remains a ‘gamer’s
market’ and despite reasonable success of Kinect and PS Move, it has not yet started to open up to a significantly broader audience,” says Catapult Business Solutions founder Chris Staton-Jones. The traditional boxed PC market continues to perform well thanks to a lack of downloads and the slow console transition to PS3 and 360. The older consoles still show clear signs of life, despite declines in their software sales. PSP and PS2 shared around a third of all software sales last year, with the PS2 established as the best selling console of 2011. But despite the strong sales of global blockbusters, there remains a lack of external interest in the South African market. BT Games is the only
50 June 15th 2012 “
60 per cent of all games are less than €19. With smart pricing, any game can be a hit.
Chris Stanton-Jones, Catapult
specialist retailer with little to no presence from international chains. Games retail is instead driven by shopping malls. The six largest chains in the country evenly share around 70 per cent of the software market. The online sector also grew, largely thanks to low prices on the big name releases. The three biggest online retailers – BT Games, Kalahari and Takealot – hold two to three per cent of the market. The market has become increasingly price sensitive as a result of both the recession and a surge of lower income consumers. “Almost one-in-three games are less than 100R (€9) and almost 60 per cent of all games are under 200R (€19). With smart pricing, any game can be a hit,” says Stanton-Jones. Gamers are being careful with what they buy, so catalogue sales are rivalling new releases. Many of the biggest titles only leave the shelves in pre-owned form or after price cuts implemented long after they are released.