Firm gives out N5m to winners of gaming tournament

By Funmilola Gboteku

The Omniverse Africa, a technology company that supports gaming, on Wednesday gave out a total of N5 million to 37 winners of the seven different games of its Gaming Tournament.

Speaking during the prize-giving ceremony in Lagos, the Co-convener of the Omniverse Africa, Mr Charles Emembolu, said that the N5 million was to celebrate, appreciate and encourage those that were in the gaming sector.

Emembolu said that the e-sports tournament which started in February was to encourage people to take up gaming as a profession, as it was highly intellectual.

According to him, gaming is built on technology and it is innovative, hence, the encouragement from the Omniverse Africa.

He said that over 20,000 people registered for the tournament, in which 37 people emerged as winners.

”Gaming is a profession, it is sports, and it is skill and those skills are also rewarded.

”Beyond the money we give out as prizes, they also earn by playing, so even while they play, they earn money. They have what we call coins, tokens. We have e-tokens and different kinds of ways that players can earn or benefit.

”More important is the impact of job creation. In fact, the gaming industry grew from about $100 million post-COVID in 2021, to over $400 million annually last year. So it is a growing sector that many of us may not know,” he said.

Emembolu said that the gaming industry helped to boost the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), through the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) attracted by the gaming companies.

He urged parents not to discourage their children from gaming, as gaming was educative, highly intellectual and lucrative as a profession.

”Gaming is addictive but it is also a profession. If you balance it, it can be very valuable. So like everything, balance is key. So this is a profession and we intend to continue supporting it,” the co-convener said.

Also speaking, Mr Kunmi Adenipebi, the Chief Executive Officer of Game Evolution Technologies, described gamers as smart people and gaming as one of the biggest entertainment and sports industry in the world currently.

Adenipebi asserted that due to its advantages, there was the need for the country to align with such an industry.

Adenipebi said that Nigeria was picking up very fast as there had been a growth between 2019 and 2024 of over a million gamers popped up from the mobile gaming sector.

He said that the future of e-sports in Nigeria was huge, as the private industries were now investing in e-sports tournament, e-sports teams and creating e-sports coaching projects.

”So, we see a very huge career industry for the next generation of Nigeria youths in the e-sports industry.

”For the professional gamers or the gamers that we have seen the past couple of years, 90 per cent of them are actually doing very well in school. Gaming is actually for smart people.

”What we have done, and most especially for the younger ones in primary and secondary school, is that before you become part of our industry, we make sure you are doing well in school.

”So we can’t really control how they play or when they play, but the most important thing is letting them know that education comes first. So we make sure we drive the importance of education to the kids while they are playing games.

”We introduce what we call gamification in education, which is adding new games to allow them read, to help them in different studies like mathematics, English, geography, meterology and everything. We also introduced those games to them to help them pick interest in reading.

”So, all those are the measures that we go through to make sure that there is a balance between gaming and education,” Adenipebi said. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)

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Edited by Florence Onuegbu/Christiana Fadare