Olivier Madiba: Leveling Up the Continent’s Gaming Potential

The global video game industry is a multi-billion-dollar battlefield where African stories have, for decades, been largely absent or relegated to the background. In Yaoundé, Cameroon, Olivier Madiba is leading a creative rebellion to change that narrative. As the founder and CEO of Kiro’o Games, Madiba has become the very definition of a "wall-breaker," having established the first video game studio in Central Africa and successfully launched the first-ever African-themed role-playing game (RPG) on the global stage. His journey is one of profound "Heritage Tech," where ancient African myths are coded into high-stakes digital adventures.

Madiba’s obsession with gaming began early, sparked by his father, who ran a video store in Douala. While he dreamt of moving to Europe or the U.S. to study the profession, he ultimately decided to build his dream at home. After studying computer science at the University of Yaoundé 1 and later refining his business acumen as a YALI scholar at Dartmouth College, Madiba realised that Africa’s wealth lay not in what it sent abroad, but in what it built locally. In 2013, alongside two childhood friends, he founded Kiro’o Games, a name derived from the Swahili "Kiroho Maono," meaning "spiritual vision."

The studio’s flagship achievement is Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan, a 2D fantasy action RPG that pays homage to African mythology. The game follows Prince Enzo Kori-Odan and his wife, Erine, as they fight to reclaim their throne after a coup d'état; a narrative that functions as a symbolic reflection of Africa’s quest for independence and sovereignty. Developing Aurion was an arduous feat that lasted over 10,000 hours of development time and two years of focused work. Madiba and his team of 18 designers had to build their own engine from scratch, a task usually reserved for major global studios.

The path to success was littered with systemic hurdles. Cameroon’s infrastructure, blighted by frequent rolling blackouts and slow internet, presented constant challenges to productivity. The team often pulled 12-hour night shifts to compensate for electricity shutdowns. Financing was an even steeper wall; traditional institutional investors and banks rejected the project, labelling it "too early" or "too risky." Undeterred, Madiba invented his own fundraising process, raising $227,000 through a combination of a successful Kickstarter campaign and equity crowdfunding from nearly 90 international investors, primarily from the Cameroonian diaspora. This model has since evolved into the "Rebuntu" platform, which trains other young Africans to navigate real-life business obstacles.

Today, Kiro’o Games is no longer a small indie experiment; it is a symbol of continental pride. In 2024, the company made history as the first Africa-based studio to launch a game on the Xbox console. Their work has expanded into a cross-media universe, including graphic novels and comics available on Amazon. Madiba’s vision for the future is to build a community of 60 million players across Africa, which would eventually generate $100 million annually. He remains committed to the idea that "being African isn't based on your colour, it's how you see the world and what you want to share," using gaming as a tool for "resilience, innovation, and rebirth."  

Lessons for Budding Makers

Olivier Madiba’s journey offers two strategic lessons for African creators in the tech and media sectors:

1. Build the Pipeline, Not Just the Product: Madiba’s creation of the "Rebuntu" mentoring program shows that successful makers must help build the local ecosystem—from training to financing models—to ensure their industry remains sustainable.
2. Own the Technical Core: By building their own custom engine when no local tools existed, Kiro'o Games proved that "Deep Tech" independence allows makers to create unique cultural products that cannot be replicated by foreign templates.