AI is helping, but we are the ones setting the paradigm, says Kiro’o Games CEO

Cameroonian developer Kiro'o Games believes the challenges facing African mobile players could help it build technology that cuts costs for larger game studios.

Kiro'o Games founder Olivier Madiba said in a post that limited mobile data and slow internet connections across African markets have pushed the studio to improve how games deliver content to players.

Many mobile games download extra content after installation, sometimes requiring hundreds of megabytes before players can access new characters, weapons or other features. This can frustrate players with limited data and lead them to quit before they start playing properly.

"The high level of frustrations/challenges in the African context is for us the ultimate innovation playground, because it puts us in an "innovate or fail" mindset to surpass ourselves and grow," he said.

Cutting unnecessary downloads

Madiba explained that Kiro'o is working on a system that splits games into smaller chunks, allowing players to download new content only when they reach the relevant stage. This could help studios reduce data delivery costs by avoiding downloads for players who quit early.

For example, a game could require a 200MB initial download, followed by another 200MB for its second chapter. Players who never finish the tutorial would not need to download that next section.

For a studio paying to acquire millions of users, Madiba affirms that this approach could reduce cloud delivery bills and make onboarding easier.

"Our studio Kiro'o Games has built a culture to overcome these types of challenges and to set up good practices for other studios, so we can build a proper gaming ecosystem," he added.

Madiba said AI is helping with this work, but stressed that developers themselves are deciding how to approach these challenges. The company also wants to share the practices it develops with other studios to help build the local games industry.