18 Million Downloads later – It was not easy

The first time I heard about Mekan games was in September 2016, at the iHub in Nairobi. They were taking part in the Chezo Serious Game Jam where teams were being tasked to come up with a game that would help educate Kenyans on water and environmental conservation.

The 3 days’ game jam had been sponsored by FloodCom, TheBarn, iHub, Upande and Deltares. I was there as a member of one of the teams (Weza Interactive Entertainment) which was also taking part in the game jam. At the time I was the graphics and game designer for Weza.

My memory fails me, but I think Mekan won that competition and we came in second. At the time Mekan comprised of three members, two gentlemen and a lady who was the designer, one of the gents was Evans Kiragu who is still the CEO of Mekan games to date.

Making games anywhere in the world is no easy task, but in Africa or in this case Kenya, it’s like being a lion in a desert. You definitely stand out but the odds are very much so against you.

From the tough act of convincing Kenyans to download and play your game to finding favorable ways of making money from the mobile games you make, it’s a very steep and tall hill to climb.

Mekan has been in the business of making games for 8 years now. One of their most notable titles was “Knock-Out 2017”, a Mortal Kombat like game but where the fighters were Kenyan politicians. It was a fun cool one aimed at helping Kenyans come together during the election period. Other notable titles from Mekan include Craving Carrots (a fun peculiar mix of Ninjas and carrots) and Wings of Fury 3D.

The company has been through it all, at some point the core team split up as a result of the company not being able to generate enough revenue to maintain sustainability and the livelihoods of the founders, quite understandable.

It is at that point that Evans knew that he would be walking this mobile games journey alone for a while and was left as the sole founder and the one to see on the dream of building games that can make money from Africa.

He tried a lot of different ideas during this period and spent a lot of time doing research as to the kinds of games that really make money, how they make money and where they make money from, all while also working for other companies because bills still had to get paid.

In 2019, he discovered hyper casual games and things began to finally make sense, he went all in on it. He continued to work on his games while also reaching out to game publishers because he finally knew that to make money with games the best play is a partnership with a good publisher.

A few publishers believed in the vision and agreed to fund the studio as Evans continued building hyper casual games that the publishers would test out with the market.

This also enabled him to finally bring in more hands to help with development.

Mekan Games Team — _{Image Courtesy premortem.games}

They developed and tested about 83 games within a two-year span. The goal was to build, test and kill off the game as quickly as possible if it was not received positively by the market.

Their biggest success so far is a mobile game called “The President” that was birthed at an incubation hub organized by Carry1st in partnership with Crazy Labs, one of the top mobile game publishers worldwide. Evans had applied to this program and was one of the few people chosen to take part in it. The incubation took place in South Africa.

The program lasted 5 months. Evans (Mekan) brought in the skills to make games, Crazy Labs brought in the data that scales games and Carry1st provided the ample environment to make these games at.

The President was built by Mekan games and published by Crazy Labs which also provides the marketing expertise and insight/data. The game currently has more than 18 Million downloads worldwide and counting.

The one thing that Evans currently stands by is that good partnerships are the key to making games in Africa that can go global. Do what you are good at and let somebody else do what they are good at to push your product further towards positive revenue generation.

I am a fan of Mekan Games and I hope this company and their Founder Evans continue to make titles that make money and shake the gaming industry in Africa and globally.