Embody George Weah, Ballon d'Or in 1995 and President of Liberia, survey the lands of the Burkinabe revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara or the committed South African singer Miriam Makeba: the Masseka Game Studio, created in Toulouse, offers to discover or rediscover a whole "cultural wealth".

"Beyond militancy, it is clearly politics", claims its young creator, believing that "as Africans, we start with a historical handicap. We have a whole set of things to deconstruct. We must teach young people to love themselves, to value themselves."

This 27-year-old Central African launched his first mobile game in 2018. He called it "Kissoro", named after one of the oldest board games in the world, considered the equivalent of chess and also known as the awale.

For Teddy Kossoko, the recipe for success “is to “dig into history, from what is common to people.” With 15,000 downloads from various countries around the world, success is there.

Then "Golden Georges", born this year, invites gamers to a game of skill with a character inspired by Weah during an initiatory quest, in a meticulously worked and colorful setting.

Models that look like them

"We had 1,500 downloads for + Golden Georges + and since January, we have had 500 players per day", rejoices Teddy Kossoko, who hopes "to reach 50,000 to 100,000 downloads by the end of the year, with 10,000 players per day".

The operator Orange, a partner of the studio, is deploying the game country by country in Africa with the 2022 Football World Cup in sight, which will begin in November.

Born in Bangui and arrived in France at the age of 18 to study IT and management, he is determined to always "place Africa at the heart of design".

Teddy Kossoko, computer engineer, founder of the Masseka Game Studio, on March 1, 2022 in Toulouse Lionel BONAVENTURE AFP

"I realized that there was a real interest and a real need on both sides of the Mediterranean", he explains to AFP, in his apartment where he installed the head office of the Masseka Game Studio, which today has eight employees.

“I grew up with characters who did not look like me, it was very complicated, he believes, lamenting that Africans can only be inspired by American or Asian models of success.

For him, the examples to follow are there, however, from the "white Zulu" Johnny Clegg to the Congolese statesman Patrice Lumumba.

"Our ambition is to create more and more African role models for people to relate to."

Soon on consoles

A new game, the first for consoles and PC, is already in the works.

"This is our flagship project, with work spanning five years," enthuses Teddy Kossoko.

It also "aims to transfer skills and knowledge" with video games created by Africans themselves, having four of its employees based on the continent.

Teddy Kossoko, computer engineer, founder of the Masseka Game Studio, on March 1, 2022 in Toulouse Lionel BONAVENTURE AFP

If the first results are good, Masseka Game Studio is still far behind the behemoths of a very lucrative industry, where tens of billions of dollars are traded.

"We are still a small independent studio, slips Teddy Kossoko, without hiding his ambition "to enter the big leagues". "We are aiming for five to 10 million in turnover per year", he specifies. .

To achieve this, he is counting on a large development on the African market, where the activity of the company he manages is for the moment "at a loss".

"If we succeed in lifting the barrier of monetization in Africa, we will quickly be one of the big ones," he says confidently, preparing to open a subsidiary in Senegal.

At the same time, Teddy Kossoko will launch another company, Gara, to allow Africans to buy mobile games and digital books, including with their phone credit.

© 2022 AFP