Maliyo Games releases its five-year impact report and announces a major evolution of its flagship developer training programme.

What started as a five-month bootcamp in 2021 has become the largest game developer training ecosystem on the continent. This week, Maliyo Games founder Hugo Obi released the GameUp Africa 5-Year Impact Report and announced that the programme is entering a new phase entirely.

Over five years, GameUp Africa has drawn more than 6,000 applicants from over 40 countries, published 161 games, and built a mentor network spanning 80 professionals from more than 30 global companies including Xbox, EA, Disney Games, and IGDA. Nigeria leads applicants at 36%, followed by Kenya at 28%, with growing representation from Ivory Coast, Angola, and Rwanda.

The report paints a picture of a programme deliberately built for inclusion rather than curation: 77% of applicants are under 30, 65% had never worked in games before applying, and only 36% had ever shipped one. Female participation has grown from roughly 16% in the early cohorts to 25% in 2025.

In 2024, the programme accepted 246 learners, 51 of whom published games on Itch.io and 59 of whom graduated with portfolios. In 2025, that expanded to 436 applicants, 225 learners, and 41 portfolio-ready graduates.

Perhaps the most significant development of the past year was the launch of the Elite Externship a 12-week studio simulation programme placing top alumni inside a live production environment working on real titles with real deadlines. The first cohort drew 141 applicants from 25 countries. Thirteen were selected. They pitched 18 concepts, developed 13 prototypes, completed 7 games, and shipped 3 live into Safari City, Maliyo’s mobile title currently in market.

Professional confidence among Elite participants grew from 67% to 89% across the three sprints. Peer ratings averaged 4.27 out of 5.

The annual cohort model is being retired. Starting in 2026, GameUp Africa becomes an always-on learning platform modular, self-paced, and open to anyone on the continent at any time. Monthly facilitated tracks with shorter completion timelines will sit alongside the self-directed content, giving learners more entry points.

Obi has also placed AI at the centre of the new curriculum. The updated programme will embed AI tools and workflows across the full game development pipeline, with an emphasis on building with AI responsibly and productively rather than simply using it as a shortcut.

A structured skills tree will map learning outcomes to specific career pathways, tied to nano and micro-credentials issued in partnership with Arizona State University and the Endless Games and Learning Lab. Graduates will be able to stack those credentials toward undergraduate and postgraduate pathways adding a globally recognised academic dimension to what has so far been a professional training programme.

Physical infrastructure is also part of the roadmap. Campus-embedded Hubs collaborative workspaces inside tertiary institutions providing power, hardware, internet, and facilitation will begin rolling out as the platform scales, with the goal of creating localised talent clusters connected through a single platform.

Beyond the numbers, the impact report articulates six principles the team says shaped everything they built: that talent is everywhere but opportunity is not; that learning is cyclical rather than linear; that mentorship multiplies progress; that resilience is learned behaviour; that impact must be engineered, not assumed; and that inclusion requires more than access — it requires actively redesigning who the system is built for.

The shift from importing mentors to generating them internally is identified in the report as perhaps the most important structural development of the five years. Alumni now return as clan leads, mentors, and Elite coaches. The pipeline feeds itself.

What comes next

Obi frames the next chapter as bigger than games. In his announcement, he described GameUp Africa 2.0 as a pathway into the global digital economy for African youth a platform designed to ensure Africa is not only participating in the future of the industry, but helping shape it.

For studios and employers looking to hire, a Talent Directory connecting top performers with industry partners is planned. For those looking to build independently, structured game jams, incubation tracks, and milestone sprints will support the formation of independent teams and studios.

“The model is proven. The talent is ready,” the report concludes. “What scales it is partnership.”

The full report can be downloaded at www.gameupafrica.com