Tech Girl explains why there aren’t enough dedicated servers in SA

Popular South African freelance shoutcaster Sam Wright, popularly known as “Tech Girl,” says that the reason South Africa (SA) does not have dedicated servers is due to a small player base.

The Red Bull SA gaming contributor made this claim on her official Twitter handle, stating that most games don’t get servers in South Africa because “the player base is too small and dedicated servers would be relatively empty, leading to long wait times for games and limited people to play with. Ultimately, making the experience worse than playing with bad ping.”

South Africa currently has the largest gaming community on the African continent with over 24 million gamers, with an estimated 11 million expected to join the fast-growing community. This has led to many believing that the various decision-makers are ignoring them.

This is not the case, according to Tech Girl, who said, “I’ve worked on esports jobs with big developers. They haven’t ignored us, they just know the number of people playing the game in Southern Africa…and it isn’t a big number.”

South Africa isn’t the only country looking for dedicated servers as the entire African continent has been calling for more servers, with one of the strongest pushers being Esports Association, Ghana (EAG) President Kwesi Hayford, who launched a petition to get more servers on the continent.

And according to Tech Girl, the solution to the South African issue would be for SA to focus on getting “more connectivity for the country. Access to technology at an affordable price. More access will mean more players, which means a bigger player base.”

Sam “Tech Girl” Wright is a leading esports shoutcaster who has worked in Europe, China and Africa on a variety of titles as a host and caster. Since 2016 she has cemented herself as a prominent voice in competitive gaming working with the likes of Blizzard, Nintendo, PUBG and Red Bull.

by Bertram Jude Buckman