Lagos Life Has Millions of Players. Can It Make Money?

When Lagos Life went live, it gave players a chance to experience familiar parts of Lagos without leaving their browsers.

But the game has become more than a place to play and is now a space where brands can reach an audience via virtual billboards, which command prices that change with demand. 

Techpoint Africa reported seeing one billboard’s weekly rate rise from ₦5,000 (about $3.75) to ₦50,000 (about $37.50) on October 5. With Lagos Life also attracting a $500,000 investment, the bigger question is whether the opportunity lies in the game itself or in the audience it is building. 

Lagos Life and 3 More Nigerian Browser Games to Play

Lagos Life Is trending, but Nigeria has 3 more games worth trying

TechloyEmmanuel Umahi

What Investors Really Bought With $500,000 

Vatar, the company behind Lagos Life, closed an angel round of $500,000 at a $10 million valuation. That hands investors about 5% of the company.  

Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga Agboola joined through his fund, along with the CEOs of Mono and Terra Industries, and the whole round closed in one day.

Vatar’s three co-founders also bring experience from different industries.

Shalom Rayhamen, the CEO and CTO, previously built anti-money laundering tools at Napier AI. Owen Rayhamen, the chief product officer, managed products at Citi, while Anderson Oriahi, the chief business development officer, co-founded health tech company Heala.

As of October 8^th, the game had passed 4.3 million players from 15 countries, with more than 200,000 online at once. Vatar says it has earned or signed over $170,000 in revenue, up from about $46,900 in its first four days. TechCabal reports five income streams, including ads, music promotion, company deals, football streaming, and top-ups, where players pay real money for in-game cash. 

So, the game pretty much works like a stage, and the crowd is the product. Advertisers and musicians pay to stand in front of it.  

Why Africa’s Gaming Audience Keeps Growing 

Gaming audiences like this are getting easier to find. Carry1st and Newzoo expect Africa's games revenue to grow 11.9% in 2026, from $1.77 billion to $1.98 billion. That means about 36.6 million new players in one year. Roughly 82% of the money comes from mobile, so a phone is almost all players need. 

Nigeria sits near the heart of it. The country had 46.5 million gamers and about $300 million in revenue in 2024, up from $249 million in 2022. Maliyo's research says Nigerian mobile revenue has grown fivefold since 2019. Carry1st's CEO points to Southeast Asia, which became a $10 billion gaming market, as a sign of what could come next. 

Local flavour may be the secret sauce. Lagos Life uses the naira and familiar city scenes, and it was inspired by Lagos Run, where players drive a danfo bus.  

Copycats, such as a London bus game and a Port Harcourt life game, soon followed. There is also room to grow. A survey cited in that report found that 56% of gamers did not know or play African-made games, so many fans have not met local studios yet. 

The Gap Between Fans and Real Businesses 

Here is the uncomfortable part.  

A KPMG and Maliyo Games study found that Africa earns less than 1% of the world's $187 billion in gaming revenue. Among 66 studios sampled across 23 countries, only 3% reached $1 million in revenue. Most of the money Africans spend goes to foreign studios. 

Developers face a tougher road than the fans do. Over half earn no income from their work, and only 3% get government funding. Poor power supply and costly internet make it harder to turn a hobby into a company. There are bright spots, though. Carry1st raised a $27 million round in 2023, and Sony's innovation fund backed it in 2024. 

Now compare the smaller cheques. Google's new fund will back only ten studios with $1 million in total, between $50,000 and $200,000 each.