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Meet Hugo Obi, Founder of Nigeria’s First Online Gaming Company

Meet Hugo Obi, Founder of Nigeria’s First Online Gaming Company

As a schoolboy growing up in Lagos, Hugo Obi was enthralled by the big American tech companies and their interplay with the stock market, according to a report in VenturesAfrica.

Now 32, he is an entrepreneur and the founder of Maliyo Games, whose goal is to share the experiences of everyday Africans with a global audience through games. “Our narratives, characters, environments and sounds help us achieve this,” its website says.

A Forbes report described Maliyo Games as “remarkable,” and one of five hot African tech startups to watch in 2013.

Obi and Jason Njoku, the founder of iROKO Partners, worked together initially but had a falling out, VenturesAfrica reports. Obi would later establish Kuluya Games with his own team.

The same Forbes report that listed Maliyo Games as one of one of five hot African tech startups to watch in 2013, also lists Kuluya.

IPOs, mergers and acquisitions of tech companies fascinated Obi as he read about them in the pages of Forbes and Time, prompting him to study computer engineering/science at the University of Benin. He thought this was the express route to the tech credibility that would make him into the next Bill Gates, Larry Ellison or Steve Jobs. When this failed to provide him the global competitiveness he desired, he hustled his way to Manchester, U.K., changed direction and studied international business, finance and economics at University of Manchester. He earned a degree in international strategy from Nanyang Business School, Singapore. After a stint as a financial analyst at GE Capital, Obi returned home to become a part of the mobile/social gaming tech expansion in Nigeria.

The Maliyo name is linked to moonlight stories and games from the Hausa language, the report said. With strong consciousness of the African and Nigerian experience, Maliyo games are quirky, whimsical and relatable with titles like Aboki, (kidnapped) and Okada, (my village.)

With a team of coders, graphic designers, user experience experts and more, Obi said he hopes to push the company to prominence and profitability. He plans to release more games on smart phone and mobile platforms – iOS, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry – while still maintaining presence on web and Facebook.

Presently he’s running with the mantra of “conceptualize, redesign, redevelop, retest, redeploy,” which explains he’s holding off releasing new material until the third quarter of 2013 or later. Obi says he’s also working on new partnerships.

He considers distribution as almost the most important aspect of the gaming business.

He hopes to make users crave the mobile gaming experience by interpreting feedback from people who have played existing games, and improving the features they enjoy.

Obi says he believes being a successful Nigerian means helping the country’s infrastructure as a form of corporate social responsibility without waiting for a government to do anything.

Obi doesn’t seem to be bothered by the competition even though it is formidable with the likes of Kuluya and Pledge 51 Games, the report said.