AFRICA WENT TO GAMESCOM. NOW CAN GAMESCOM COME TO AFRICA?
Gamescom 2026 showed that African gaming is becoming more visible. The harder task is turning visibility into companies, investment and intellectual property—and perhaps building a continental gathering of our own.
Walking through gamescom 2026 in Cologne as an African games journalist produced two competing emotions: admiration and impatience.
Admiration because the scale is extraordinary. Impatience because after several days of watching developers, publishers, investors, technology companies, governments, creators and players occupy the same ecosystem, one thought became increasingly difficult to suppress:
Why can Africa not build something of its own?
Not a copy of gamescom. Africa does not need a smaller Cologne transplanted to Accra, Lagos, Nairobi or Cape Town. It needs an industry gathering designed around the economics, ambitions and peculiar challenges of African gaming.
Gamescom 2026 demonstrated what is possible when an industry concentrates itself.
Some 368,000 visitors from 131 countries travelled to Cologne. There were 1,743 exhibitors from 66 countries across approximately 233,000 square metres. More than 36,000 trade visitors attended, 72% of exhibitors came from outside Germany and 48 country pavilions represented 41 nations.
Online, gamescom generated more than 624m views.
Yet the most important thing about gamescom cannot be captured by attendance figures.
Gamescom is not simply an exhibition.
It is economic infrastructure.
Behind the giant booths, queues and game demonstrations is a marketplace. Publishers discover studios. Investors assess companies. Developers meet technology providers. Governments promote their creative economies. Universities discuss talent. Platforms find content. Journalists discover stories.
And, somewhere between an exhibition stand, coffee meeting and evening reception, a conversation can become a contract.
That is perhaps the biggest lesson Africa should take home.
Africa must move from representation to revenue
African participation at gamescom has become increasingly visible, with developers, studios and industry representatives from several parts of the continent present in Cologne this year.
That matters.
But representation cannot become the final measure of progress.
An African studio can travel thousands of kilometres, exhibit for several days, receive media coverage, collect photographs and generate social-media impressions—and still return home without becoming a stronger business.
We therefore need to ask more uncomfortable questions.
How many conversations became contracts?
How many studios met publishers?
How many secured investment?
How many games obtained international distribution?
How many international companies entered African markets because of relationships established at gamescom?
And six or twelve months later, how much revenue can actually be traced back to Cologne?
African participation at international exhibitions should increasingly be judged against these measures.
Studios travelling abroad need commercial preparation before departure: investment readiness, pitch development, intellectual-property protection, publisher negotiations, financial modelling and data-room preparation.
At the event, delegations need organised B2B meetings rather than depending principally on people wandering past their stands.
Afterwards, those conversations should be tracked for six to twelve months.
That is how an African pavilion becomes an economic-development instrument rather than an expensive display stand.
Africa needs its own room
Gamescom nevertheless encouraged a slightly selfish thought.
Imagine an African games industry week where a Ghanaian developer does not need to travel to Europe to meet a Nigerian publisher, Kenyan animator, South African tournament operator, Senegalese creative agency or international investor interested in African intellectual property.
Imagine putting studios, publishers, investors, esports organisations, telecom companies, payment providers, hardware manufacturers, universities, governments, creators, media and players under one roof.
Africa already possesses many of these pieces.
What it lacks is sufficient concentration.
An African equivalent should therefore not attempt to attract 368,000 people in year one. Start smaller—and make every square metre commercially useful.
Perhaps 10,000–20,000 participants would be enough.
The event could contain four connected elements: a business and investment exchange; an Africa Games Expo where studios demonstrate playable products; a policy and knowledge conference; and a consumer festival incorporating esports, creators, cosplay, games, technology and entertainment.
But there should be one overriding test:
Did African businesses make business?
Create an investor room for selected studios.
Match publishers and developers before they arrive.
Establish an Africa Games Market for licensing, publishing and distribution.
Allow governments and development agencies to announce funds and incentives.
Bring banks, fintechs, telecom companies and payment providers into the commercial conversation.
Create an African IP showcase where investors can discover games capable of becoming franchises across film, animation, merchandise and other media.
This should not merely be somewhere to talk about the African games industry.
It should be somewhere to transact within it.
Could Ghana host it in 2027?
There is an intriguing opportunity.
In 2027, Ghana marks 70 years since independence.
The anniversary will inevitably look backwards. But perhaps part of the celebration should ask what African economic independence means for the next generation.
Digital ownership should be part of that discussion.
Ghana could host an inaugural Games Africa or Africa Games Week in Accra as part of the 70th-anniversary programme.
The symbolism would be difficult to miss.
Ghana’s independence in 1957 helped inspire a continental political movement. Seventy years later, Accra could convene another African conversation—this time about moving from consuming global digital entertainment towards producing, owning and exporting intellectual property.
Ghana offers international connectivity, a growing technology and creative community, hospitality infrastructure and a geographic position capable of connecting West Africa with international markets.
But symbolism alone will not build a successful event.
Government can enable it, but industry must drive it.
Publishers and investors must be recruited before the exhibition stands are sold. African countries and regional ecosystems should have dedicated pavilions. Studios should be selected on quality and commercial potential rather than connections.
And Ghana must host the event without attempting to own the African conversation.
Nigeria brings enormous market scale. South Africa has one of the continent’s more developed gaming ecosystems. Kenya provides East Africa’s technology strength. North Africa brings significant development talent and proximity to Europe and the Middle East. Francophone Africa represents another substantial creative economy.
Ghana’s role could simply be to provide the table.
From Cologne to Accra?
The greatest lesson from gamescom 2026 is therefore not 368,000 visitors, 1,743 exhibitors or 624m digital views.
It is concentration.
For one week, much of the international games industry occupies the same physical space. Distance temporarily disappears. Conversations that could take months to arrange begin across a table.
Africa needs more of those tables.
For years, we have argued that Africa has talent.
That argument is increasingly settled.
The next question is harder: can we turn talent into companies, companies into intellectual property, intellectual property into exports, and exports into sustainable African industries?
Perhaps that is the real challenge gamescom leaves us with.
The ambition for 2027 should not simply be to send even more African studios to Cologne.
It should be to start building something compelling enough that, one day, Cologne comes to Africa.
