Teddy Kossoko is a solutions architect from the Central African Republic and founder of Masseka Game Studio a game design company that develops video games aimed at promoting African culture.
Game Developers , A pain point in his effort to showcase African-made games on the world stage has been the traditional app store payment model. When Kossoko launched Masseka Game Studio in 2018, he initially placed its suite of pan-African games in the Google Play store. Masseka was able to gain around 10,000 users, but struggled to earn from its active user base. Their customers were primarily located in sub-Saharan Africa and did not have the credit or debit cards necessary to make mobile game purchases through Google Pay So the founder decided to develop his own solution, an app tailored to facilitate the payment infrastructure that African developers would need to earn money for their products. He called it the Gara store.
A mere 3% of people in sub-Saharan Africa use credit cards for payments. Debit card penetration is also scant at an estimated 18% of the population in the region. Consumers in sub-Saharan Africa instead rely on cash and mobile money, near-instant payment services offered via mobile devices to make payments. Kossoko initially wanted to work with Google to integrate cash and mobile money payments into the Google Play store’s model. “I went to Google and told them that I could build a system for people in Africa to make mobile game purchases,” Kossoko said in an interview with DW But Google turned down the offer, said Kossoko. “Google told me that if I put this in the Google Play store, they would remove it.” Developers are restricted from promoting third-party payment technology in games hosted on the Google Play store, according to the company’s Developer Distribution Agreement (DDA).
Google removed popular mobile game Fortnite from the Google Play store in 2020 after its developer, Epic Games, tried to subvert the store’s payment system. Despite limited payment solutions offered by Google’s proprietary app store, developing with Google comes with tailored support and full access to a suite of easy-to-use software development kits. Creators that try to circumvent this model risk losing time and money, Kossoko told DW. But, he felt it was necessary for the future of his company to develop the Gara store anyway. Kossoko and his team also choose to develop an app for Android phones. Android is the dominant mobile operating system used by around 80% of people throughout Africa. The Android system is also easier to subvert than the Apple-run iOS system, according to Kossoko.
“We can’t deploy our platform on Apple products because the system is locked,” said Kossoko. “With Android you can do what you want, the limit is your imagination.” It took four years and more than $1,02 million (€1 million) to develop the Gara store. People were initially doubtful of Kossoko’s ability to build an independent Android app. “They told me that most of the best developers who can do this kind of stuff are in the US or Asia,” the founder said. He took some of this advice and hired a technologist from the US, but he also made sure to onboard developers from Senegal, Ivory Coast, Benin, and Cameroon to help others learn about the technology his company was creating.
Source: This news is originally published by allafrica