Reasons why Nigerians do not stream much
I was just looking around on Twitch and Youtube and noticed that there aren’t that many Nigerian game streamers. Most of the Nigerian Youtubers mostly specialize in other fields like business, fashion and makeup, travel etc.
I am bringing this up because there are a lot of Nigerians out there that play games like League of Legends and even host mini tournaments for said games.
Perhaps that is why I created my own Youtube gaming channel but a part of me kind of wants to backtrack and just delete the whole damn thing.
As for why most Nigerians probably do not bother game streaming or maybe some do and I did not check properly are the following:
1 Low Electricity supply
This is a general problem that actually affects most businesses in the country. One minute there is light, and the next you will probably spend a whole entire day without any light and as a result, you will be forced to waste money on petrol for the generator.
This affects gaming because imagine you are streaming on Twitch for example and you want to probably play three League of Legends matches in a row and you are using an actual desktop computer. If you are in the middle of just one game or even two and then suddenly NEPA takes light, that is the end for you until they bring back the light or you ask someone to put on the gen. If you have an inverter then you are fine.
In case there is no petrol kan? What do you do? That is automatically an unintentional AFK for you and Riot has started punishing AFKers regardless of their reasonings, even those that do not intend to AFK. Trust me, I have had a lot of those moments and got punished for that.
If it is a gaming console like a XBOX, same logic applies here. If you use a laptop for gaming, then I guess you can sort of get away with that but you are still screwed if you keep playing and then suddenly, your laptop shuts down because the battery is low and there is no light to charge it. This applies to mobile games as well. I know it sucks. But that is not the only problem you will have to deal with as a Nigerian gamer.
2 Bad Internet Connectivity
Ever seen those players in games like League that ping Ping is soso amount? Yup, that applies to Nigerians here. The Internet speed over here is quite bad. Heck to even stream a Youtube or Twitch video can be a nightmare because of the amount of buffering. This is why loads of us stick to mobile data but that in itself is a problem because of the cost. In order to stream via Google Stadia for instance, you will need 10Mbps and most Nigerian Internet services have their speed sitting around 1.4Mbps. How annoying.
3 Most gaming equipment are expensive
I checked an online store for the price of Playstation 4 and the price I saw there made my jaw drop. Playstation there costs about 155,000 naira which is quite expensive. How many people can afford that sort of money?! And if you pay that amount for Playstation, imagine how much the games would cost? This would explain why most Nigerians buy these stuff abroad. The cheapest thing that any Nigerian can afford for streaming now is a laptop. So basically in order for you to do well as a streamer, one has to manage with the little that they have and go from there.
So is game streaming viable in Nigeria? To me, it is more of a wait and see sort of thing because a lot has to be done and improved upon in order for certain businesses like game streaming to strive in Nigeria.
