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Sheilah Birgen

22 Mar, 9 tweets, 4 min read

Gaming is the biggest earning media sector, with an estimated $165 billion revenue generated in 2020. Here is 50 Years of Gaming History, by Revenue Stream (1970-2020). Mobile gaming is the highest earner, if you developing games, you know where to start.
visualcapitalist.com/50-years-gamin…

To put this into business perspective, here are the 25 highest grossing media franchises of all time. None of them is a TV, news or even film making companies . Please also note that most of them make their money from merchandise! Do you know what that means? Community is key!

Let's break that down even further to see why all big tech companies are in on this. Here are Major Gaming Acquisitions in 2014
2014-Facebook acquired Oculus VR for $3.0B
2014-Amazon acquired Twitch Streamingfor $1.0B
2014-Microsoft acquired Mojang Games for $2.5B
1/2

Major Gaming Acquisitions Since 2016;
2016-Activision acquired BlizzardKing Games =$5.9B
2016-Tencentacquired Supercell Games = $8.6B
2020-Embraceracquired Saber Games= $0.5B
2020-Microsoftacquired ZeniMax Games =$7.5B
2020-Take-Two acquiredCodemasters Games =$1B
2/2

@technology

Microsoft is in talks to acquire Discord, a video-game chat community, for more than $10 billion, according to people familiar with the matter bloomberg.com/news/articles/… via @technology

2021: Chinese technology company and TikTok’s owner ByteDance has reportedly acquired Mobile Legends: Bang Bang developer and publisher Moonton..The acquisition is believed to be valued at $4B and was via ByteDance’s video game division Nuverse.
reuters.com/article/techno…

Chinese tech giant Tencent’s Timi Studios, the maker of popular video games Honor of Kings and Call of Duty Mobile, generated revenue of $10 Billion in 2020. That was on MOBILE Gaming ALONE! Take note devs, take note!
reuters.com/article/us-ten…

Activision Blizzard earned $8.1 billion in revenue in 2020, an increase of 25% year-over-year.
Activision reported fourth-quarter revenue of $2.41 billion, up 21.5 % from the same period in 2019.

2.41 Billion in 3 months. Gaming is the future!
reuters.com/article/esport…

Btw Tencent’s biggest investor is South Africa's Naspers Internet Group.Who had 31% and just sold 2% of that at $14.5 B. They invested $32m in a then little-known Chinese start-up in 2001,that is now worth nearly $240B. One of the greatest VC bets.
ft.com/content/af7e20…

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More from @SheilahBirgen

Sheilah Birgen

@SheilahBirgen

8 Apr

Most of the DMs I have received are of people asking about the career and entrepreneurial opportunities in the gaming industry. Thanks for reaching out. For the benefit of all, (also coz the DMs are many 🙈😝) here is a thread on those Entrepreneurial&Career Opportunities.

Careers: There are 2 ways: game development side and playing side. For the development side: you can be an animator, music composer, designers, story/scriptwriter or developer, project manager/scrum master, all the other office, admin and operations roles can also apply here.

Playing side(I'll leave out pro players cz I feel they are entrepreneurs). Careers are mostly on the Esports side: Tournament host, coach/analyst, event and PR/marketing related jobs, community/social media manager, broadcast/production crew, Esports agent & the other admin roles

Read 7 tweets

Sheilah Birgen

@SheilahBirgen

7 Apr

In Africa, we're still sleeping on gaming (both mobile and esports)! I don't think we understand the magnitude of that industry and the advantage we have as a continent! There are challenges but we still have mad leverage to build some things here! Let me explain that, ok?🧵

Africa's population is estimated to be 1.2B, with at least 200M people aged between 15 and 24 years. We also have the highest population growth rate in the world at 2.7% a year. This means a growing market/opportunity for gaming coz the populace will always be young!

By 2025, even with 1.05 billion sim connections and 614 million unique mobile subscribers and smartphone adoption reaching 65% of the total population, only 39% of Africans would be experiencing their mobile web on smartphones. Mobile penetration experiences growth in Africa YoY

Read 14 tweets

Sheilah Birgen

@SheilahBirgen

6 Feb

Eeehhh this academy thing is a bit intense if I must say! 8am training on a Saturday..... Like, huh? Anyway, Mino Raiola better be hitting me up in 7-10 years coz this is my GameStop stock....

Also this child must be at the academy 15mins before time because he doesn't like to be rushed or late!!! He woke me up at 6:30am saying...."But, you..... you are slow!" Eeehh! Are we sure this one is my child, really?

Lastly, his football idol is Kevin De Bruyne. I mean, come on! What level of taste does this child have? First you support Man City, in MY HOME? Then you say KDB??? (I don't hate KDB but jeeeez! Man Utd has 100s of options)

I honestly have major doubts! I need DNA test coz....

Read 4 tweets

Sheilah Birgen

@SheilahBirgen

4 Feb

@DisruptAfrica

In 2020, Kenyan startups raised combined total of US$191,381,000 (Kshs 21+ Billion). That was 27.3% of the continent’s total investment. It was the largest amount of funding ever achieved by a single African country.
@DisruptAfrica

This sooo HUGE! Let me explain why. A thread

Kenya is a small country by population with only around 53M people. Kenya is 7th in Africa, we are 3rd in East Africa, after Ethiopia and Tanzania. Accounting for 0.69 % of the world population. Ohh, and only 28 % live in the urban areas. So, mostly a rural majority populace.

According to Africa Infrastructure Development Index (2018) Kenya was ranked position 18 in Africa. The index looks at i) electricity; (ii)transport; (iii) ICT; and (iv) water and sanitation. All these are critical resources in growing a robust ecosystem.

Read 9 tweets

Sheilah Birgen

@SheilahBirgen

24 Nov 20

@weshkaris

@weshkaris @jafyaa Let me explain that in 3 folds: Characters, Storyline& Publication.
1. Characters: the lead character is Shakes, there are 9 other main Characters. Their Surnames could change e.g He was Shakes Makena in Kenya, SA he was Shakes Mokena, in Nigeria he was Segun "Shegs" Okoro.

@weshkaris

@weshkaris @jafyaa Positions also doesn't change: Shakes (Striker, Main Character) Big Bo (Goal Keeper,Vice Capt) North Shaw (Main Defender) Blok (Defender) Dancing Rasta (Midfielder, Capt) Cool Joe (Midfielder, Lft Wing) Klaus (Defender, Midfielder, Striker) Twisting Tiger (Midfielder, Right Wing)

@weshkaris

@weshkaris @jafyaa So, no matter the localisation of the their environment and their surnames... there was uniformity in their character names and position in the team. That is really important for relatability(customised) and for uniformity regardless of the storyline.

Read 5 tweets

Sheilah Birgen

@SheilahBirgen

23 Nov 20

I don't think we give Supa Strikas the respect and hype it really deserves! It is hands down the most innovative, best sports comic and animated series television series of our generation. You know why? Let's break it down, shall we? A thread.

Supa Strikas is a pan-African(NOTE that) association football-themed comic. It was founded by Andrew Smith, Oliver Power, Lee Hartman and Alex Kramer then produced in Malaysia by Animasia Studio, and Strika Entertainment originally in South Africa, 1st published in 2000 in SA.

By 2002 it was published in Namibia, Botswana, Zambia. Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. I remember in Kenya we used to think it was about Harambee stars. It used to be a magazine inserted in the weekend newspaper. That was a very strategic and innovative move. Why you ask?

Read 17 tweets

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