WHAT IS JUJU GAMES?

Gaming and art have increasingly become intertwined, with video games considered a unique medium, blending elements of storytelling, visual arts, music, interactive design, and even architecture, offering a unique and immersive experience. Game art is big business.

The video game (e-sports) industry is steadily growing in Africa. According to Statistica, Nigeria’s revenue in the E-sports market is projected to reach US$20.0m this year. Revenue in this sector is expected to demonstrate an annual growth rate of 6.89% by 2029. Due to the huge capital investment, Nigeria has been largely an e-sport consumer nation. But recently, pioneers in the sector have sprung up with creations that have drawn the attention of gamers and game publishers globally. One of the key players is Max Ezeogu – the creator of Juju Games. He is our guest today in a very enlightening interview.

Welcome, Max, to an interview with Teambooktu.

Thanks for having me.

So I went through your site and was quite impressed. I wonder why I never heard of it until recently. When did you start Juju Games?

Unofficially, five years ago. Officially, two years ago.

Interesting! So I’m going straight to the next question that’s nagging me. I’m curious, Why ‘Juju’? How did you come up with the name Juju Games?

Initially, I was going for the name Voodoo Games because I felt that the name ‘Voodoo’ was more international. But there was already a Voodoo Games out there in the UK. So I had to find another name that passed the message of creating magic and sounds homegrown as well. So that’s how Juju Games came about- while appreciating that there are some negative stereotypes around the word. Juju Games celebrates the magic of creating local e-sports and video games. ‘Voodoo’ and ‘juju’ are essentially the same word so it’s fine. I have a video game called Vodou which borrows from the former.

Yes. I noticed you have two Vodou games. What’s the difference between the two?

One is a prototype mobile game and the other is a prototype PC game. We are trying to create an Afrofuturistic franchise game with Vodou.

I see. And what about the second game- Canjin?

Canjin is one of the first games I released on our platform. It was created about 4 or 5 years ago. It stems from my background in comic books. I once worked in Comic Republic before starting Juju Games. So it was based on a comic I created back then about a superhero from the North fighting terrorism in that area. I made a PC version but because of technical constraints, I had to move on to something a lot easier to achieve within the timeframe available.

And then there’s Mansa, an auto-chess-related game. I guess, that’s still in the works?

Okay, yes. It was for a game jam. I joined a game jam- where developers and creators are tasked to create a game from scratch within a certain timeframe. So I created the game, which was essentially inspired by the African ruler. You know- Mansa Musa? Said to be the richest man to have ever lived. Well, ‘Mansa’ is a Malian word for emperor. So the aim of the game is that the player’s consciousness is thrown into the future to play a game against a powerful artificial intelligence. You have to play to spare humanity and if you lose the rogue AI will destroy human consciousness. Quite apocalyptic. It’s inspired by a Reddit post I read some time ago on Roko’s Basilisk.

Game art is a big deal these days. The graphics in your games are quite impressive. What challenges do you have coming up with games in the country? Considering that you have to maintain international standards to be competitive. How has it been?

Well, because I have almost a decade’s experience creating art and visuals- creating characters like this- I’ve been able to train myself to the point that I can meet international standards easily. So that is not much of a challenge. Where the challenge is, though, is in finding people with the technical know-how to make these games. Finding the equipment required to do so and also some support from the general community, then there’s the economy. Not to mention the glaring deficiencies in infrastructure- epileptical power supply, etc. You have to run your own generator and fuel it. All these things add to expenses and it is not as if these games are making that much money- yet. All self-funded when you can’t get any support. Outside the country, they have grants, investors, etc. and it’s very easy to get into these programs.

Last year, we went on a trip to Germany, and after the outing, we got some funding and great opportunities. We were offered some grants from an enabling world. All in one month. Compare that to the two to three years we’ve been operational in Nigeria where we have gotten next to nothing in terms of support. We have been working with our hands tied in a creative space. So it’s a totally different ball game. Very difficult for start-ups such as this. It’s out of passion that we still persevere- if not, financially, economically, sometimes it feels like it makes no sense. Africacomicade and co. have done a bit, though. They have linked us to some opportunities that have put us in the limelight.

Africacomicade?

They are an indie animation, comic, and gaming community that supports indie gamers in Nigeria, They have an accelerator programme and fellowship where they basically try to network indie game developers in Nigeria to external and local opportunities so that the community grows. They have been a very big help in my journey.

So are there many of you in the gaming community in Nigeria? Or is it a very small circle?

So there are very few people making their own stuff in the African space. Because, I feel, it’s very cost-intensive and it has a long-term gain. Most of the time you can spend 5 to 6 years in this sort of game, and it doesn’t cut it. When I was growing up I was inspired by Kluya games. They were making lots of Africa and Nigeria-themed games like Okada Run and Keke-On-the- Run, then they were nowhere to be found. Even after funding and everything…

One thing you realize in this business is that the Nigerian space doesn’t have buying power for local products. They would rather import or buy internationally. They prefer to buy games like Call Of Duty or Fortnite because of the quality of these games rather than spend N2 – N5 on a locally-made game. A lot of indie game developers in Nigeria recognize this already, so they tailor their games for the international market. So there will be a lot of studios but the content created are foreign content. As a result, you might not even notice that it’s actually from a Nigerian studio.

True, a lot of it looks foreign- mostly Afrofuturistic. Have you ever considered doing games related to contemporary Africa or her past? Would they sell in the present-day market?

So, just off the top of my head, I think the reason why Afrofuturism sells is because a lot of Africans demonize their own culture and tradition. There’s that bias that if it’s back in the past, it’s a bit backward or so. Also, a lot of people want to look at the future and not be stereotyped with loincloth and spear. That stereotype has been fed so much that that is all they think about when they think of Africa. But till today, they still haven’t figured out how the pyramids were built by Egyptians, who are Africans, right? And that’s a technological marvel that hasn’t been replicated in the world to date. But when you think about African games, the bias in your mind is spears, loincloths, shield, and hut.

Also, another reason I lean towards Afrofuturism is because I am a fan of space opera, so that’s why I lean towards that area. I prefer fantasy stories as well. Stories that blend both modern and trado-African. While Vodou seems like it’s more sci-fi, most of the stories I prefer to create are fantasy-based without any sort of rules or regulations as opposed to what they all should look like or what they should be like. If I’m going to create an African story, I’m going to add something like mythical African folklore creatures blending with humanity. Things that might not seem like they happened in the past. Something that makes the world look a little bit more magical if that makes sense. So that’s my preference- that’s why most of my games look that way.

I’ve also dabbled into contemporary African stories, modern stories, for example, at Comic Republic, I have a story called Amadioha– it’s basically a story of the Igbo god of thunder coming down to modern civilization, having a kid and deciding he doesn’t want to be a god anymore, he just wants to raise his kid and people are dragging him back to that old life- being a deity and all that.

I think one of the reasons I went into Afrofuturism inside the gaming space was because of the possibilities of creating an all-expansive world that isn’t limited to certain parameters I see in the modern day. For example, voodoo was a Dahomey religion before it was shipped to Haiti, right? In my Vodou game, we have characters from South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Mali etc. I’m able to mix all of that because it is sci-fi fantasy and that’s the liberty that it gives you. That’s why I prefer it. So I could have access to all the cultures without having to be limited to telling one particular story. It’s something that Star Wars does a lot because if you think about it, the Jedis are basically monks, right? The Jedi is a borrowed word from somewhere in Ethiopia, which means ‘warrior of the light’ or something like that.

George Lucas could appropriate so many themes inside one single story because it’s sci-fi fantasy and there’s no barrier with that kind of story. So that’s why I usually tend to lean towards that with Juju Games. But there are other game developers in Nigeria doing African stories like Dimension 11, for example. They have this story, I think, Legend of the Orisha. You could check it out as well.

Has the gaming community ever thought of having an arcade in Lagos where only African games are played? Just to popularize them like what we see out there?

I think they have. Usually, they have all these game conventions, game events, and everything. And all the African developers like, you know, get stalls and everything. I think they have a couple of such, actually. Africacomicade has done that and also organized the Game Awards last year as well. They are very much on top of the indie games scene in Nigeria and Lagos in particular. Oh yeah, they have those events, but they are not publicized well enough.
Because it’s not Afrobeats and it’s not trending.

What is your staff strength in Juju Games?

We are about 10 – 12.

How do you get revenue? How is your business run? Through ads?

Right now, we’re looking for investment. We’re looking for publishers to publish the games. Usually, things are very expensive. That’s also something. I think this is why a lot of people don’t venture into publishing their own products because it’s very expensive. Like I can tell you now that the budget for Vodou the PC game is around $300,000. And that’s something a lot of Nigerians don’t even have access to in any capacity.

The reason why we are able to even have that figure in mind is because we just got a grant from our outing in Germany. We were in Games Ground and won the pitch competition there and got several calls from different publishers who are on line waiting for our products. The budget for games is huge. That’s usually where the funding challenge is. You’re supposed to recoup the cost by making digital sales, right? Platforms like Steam and so on. And for mobile, what we’re planning to do is pull ads so that they will get passive revenue from publishers.

Can you talk more about your German outing?

Okay, so we were invited to this programme called Rabid Coconut. It was an all-expense paid trip for me and two other team members to Germany. It happened to coincide with an event called Games Ground, Berlin, where we were set to pitch in. Having pitched alongside 7 to 10 other studios, we won the judges’ award and also the audience vote as the fan favourite. So that was a very successful outing for us in the end because we were able to do a lot of networking.

Well done! That’s quite encouraging! As this is a relatively new area for most people; it’s good we’re putting it up on Teambooktu so they can check your games out. Is Vodou available on Playstore or is it downloadable from your site?

The prototype will definitely be out on Playstore very soon. And I emphasize on prototype right now, because we need funding to build the full product. So that’s what we’re looking for. So it’s a playable demo with a good number of levels that are inside the release we going to have on Playstore.

Noted. Lastly, have you considered doing collaborations with Comic Republic for example? You know, sometimes when you have popular characters that people already know, making a game out of them is easier to sell. Or collabos with Nollywood, like a Jagun Jagun fantasy game? It might be a hit.

Okay, so in terms of collaborations, the first port of call we had in mind was Comic Republic since I have several IPs there, like Amadioha and Hero Generation, etc, so it was a question of which to pick. So, I picked Hero Generation and that’s a game we are actively working on right now. We tested the game out last year at Africacomicade and the reaction was very positive so it’s in the pipeline to release this year on Playstore. I think Uti of Big Brother Africa fame is going to voice one of the characters so that would be interesting to see.

Exciting stuff! Well, thanks for your time. We wish you all the very best going forward.

Thanks for the opportunity.

https://its-juju-games.itch.io/canjin