Video games in South Africa

South Africa is one of the largest video game markets in Africa. The market has overtaken the market in movies and music in the country.
The gaming industry is rapidly increasing in South Africa thanks to companies such as BT Games.
South Africa also boasts Expos, relatively big LAN's, nationwide video game retailers, and a growing community of gamers. South Africa's biggest LAN event called the NAG LAN of the former magazine company moved to Cape Town in 2016, which had an impressively large turnout. Another LAN event was held in Cape Town which was only slightly smaller than the NAG LAN with 400 people. Although the gaming community in Cape Town is the second biggest, the uncontested giant in South African gaming is Johannesburg, with Gauteng in its entirety housing more video game players than the rest of the country.
Plans are also laid out by SuperSport to start an eSport channel with GINX eSports TV as the demand for streaming eSports keeps on growing.
Big tech companies like MWEB and Telkom host local server game servers which improve gaming by a lot in South Africa. This helps the improvement of local competitive gaming and brings the local gaming community together easier.
One problem that South Africa is undertaking is the struggle to get protection from the government for Game Developers. There is a "ball-passing" going on at the different departments. The Dep. of Trade, Arts and Culture and Sports are still discussing which one will take the authority of handling the rights of game developers.
Compared to the rest of Africa.
South Africa's video gaming compared to the rest of Africa is unchallenged due to the large number of wealthy South Africans living in cities like Durban, Cape Town, Pretoria, Bloemfontein and Johannesburg. With internet infrastructure being more than sufficient to support esports, and with Fibre being almost fully integrated in cities and wealthy suburban areas, the growth in online gaming can only be motivated. Video game developing in the country is not doing well, but events and eSports organizations like Mind Sports South Africa, the Digital Gaming League, Orena and LANX have jumped up in 2015 with the big demand for eSports tournaments and other video game events in large cities. However, it is only Mind Sports South Africa that continually holds events in all the provinces and runs school events. With gaming in schools also in the rise, Mind Sports South Africa reports that there are now over 30 schools that participate in the official league, with school teams competing on an equal footing with many of the best private clubs in the country.
Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda are the other top game developers in Africa. The video game industry is bringing millions of dollars in for their countries per year. This is in all categories of video games: mobile, PC, Xbox, and PS. Because it was not the culture of the African people, the people are slowly growing into the video game entertainment.
South Africa also being dominant in sport in the continent and all over the world, and the country too has made its mark on the eSport scene as the national South African team has participated in every International e-Sports Federation world Championship since 2009 over a varied number of games and platforms. But Mind Sports South Africa has admitted that the gaming scene needs to mature.
Further proof that South Africa is highly respected is that Thomas Brown was selected to referee at the 2016 World Cyber Arena (WCA) in Beijing, and that on 31 July 2016 Jason Batzofin was elected onto International e-Sports Federation Athletes' Commission.
South Africa is ranked 23rd in the world for the video game "".
Video game retailers and distributors in South Africa.
In South Africa, the majority of video game retailers purchase directly from publisher-authorised distributors for the country. However, some stores source titles from outside of the country due to cheaper prices, titles that aren't officially licensed for South Africa, or hard-to-find releases. 
Both Core Group (Nintendo) and Koodoo (Sony) distribute their licenced products to stores, along with selling directly to the public. This may lead to power imbalances within the market as both companies have the ability to undercut their retail customers or hold stock for themselves. 
South Africa also has a healthy second-hand market. 