How many South Africans make video games for a living?

Gaming industry body Make Games South Africa recently released its local Games Industry Survey 2013 results, which show how many local men and women make a living in the local video game market.

While most of us think of the US, Europe, and Japan when it comes to countries and continents where you can make it as a game dev, the survey shows that a fair number of South Africans are employed in the relatively small local industry.

SA gaming industry – the numbers

SA boasts the following:

32 gaming studios are developing games or doing contract work on games.

Three studios are in Durban, 14 in Gauteng, and 15 in and around Cape Town. Seven of the studios have been in existence for more than five years, while 10 of these studios focus their time fully on developing their own games.

196 full-time, 284 part-time jobs have been created.

R30 million in revenue was generated in 2013, with nine of the studios generating over a million rand in revenue each. 12 studios made a profit in 2013.

The survey did note that the “full impact” of recent success stories such as Desktop Dungeons, Broforce, and PixelBoy were not included in the results. They would, however, be counted in 2014’s survey.

The demographics of the studios are as follows:

86% white male;
7% women;
2.5% black;
1.5% coloured;
2% Indian/Asian.

Any MyGaming readers involved in the local game developer industry? Tell us about it in the comments and forum. If you’d like to give making games a try – check out MakeGamesSA.