Having moved on from the pyramid scheme marketing operations that previously resulted in a 3-month suspension from the ASX, gaming company Emerge Gaming (ASX: EM1) is back on their strategic pathway in Africa with the launch of a new competitive game streaming service in partnership with telecommunications company MTN. 

To be known as MTN Arena 5G, the service will enable African citizens to live stream premium games played on the competitive MTN Arena platform, with leaderboard functionality where games compete to win real prizes and awards via mobile game tournaments. 

MTN Arena 5G will complement the existing MTN Arena with the latter targeted towards lower entry-barrier segments of the African gaming community where games can be played on low bandwidth whereas the 5G Arena will feature more sophisticated games, better graphics and require high speed internet. By providing this competitive Arena, Emerge is hopeful that it will attract higher levels of engagement within the more savvy gamers that would otherwise prioritise PC and console gaming where live streaming plays a major role in audience engagement. 

The three games to be launched on MTN Arena 5G will be Terragon: A Dragons Adventure, Motoriza: Forest Run and Wild Spear. Playing these games, users can compete for ‘play tokens’ on the MTN Arena which can then be cashed out for prizes and rewards to gamify the competitive landscape. Similarly, these play tokens can also be purchased using real money and then used as entry fees into tournaments to win more play tokens. 

The launch of MTN Arena 5G will follow similar terms to Emerge’s existing revenue share agreement with MTN whereby Emerge will earn 60% of shareable revenue, and MTN 40%. 

To accelerate the launch of the new premium gaming platform, MTN will offer 1,500,000 play tokens to a targeted group of customers who can use the play tokens to enter tournaments with the possibility of turning those small amounts of tokens into a lot more. 

Although there may only be three premium games available on the new competitions platform, Emerge has flagged new games expected to be launched over the next year through their in-house development team and outsourced game developers. It is hoped by Emerge that these new titles will leverage existing development IP to deliver cutting-edge content that will appeal to African-based gamers. 

At present, Emerge Game Studio is executing its roadmap which is targeting 12 new competition ready premium games with genres including sports, shooter, survival, adventure, hack & slash and puzzles. 

In FY22, sales from the MTN platforms generated $416k for Emerge Gaming.