Presentation being made at the UK GenVoices event in London, on 6th June 2014 at the University of Greenwich, London.

1. Video Games and The Future of
Entrepreneurship in Nigeria

2. Borrowing Ideas
Megan McArdle -
Bloomberg, The Atlantic

3. Evolution of Video Games
1980s - Atari, Arcades - Dozens of levels, extremely difficult, almost no
one ever finished them because trying again = starting all over again
!
!
!
Today - Possible to save games, cartridges, disks, memory cards/drives,
no need to start from the beginning each time you stop
!

4. Then and Now
• Hard core gamers only
• Unbroken stretch needed
to play games
• Take your game
wherever you were going
• Boys only
• Play when you have time
• Play online
• Boys, girls, men, women, old people

5. What do Video Games have to do with Entrepreneurship?
Professor Deirdre McCloskey has one of my favourite answers to why
rich countries got rich - Attitudes started to change in Holland and
England in the 1800s
http://youtu.be/a0nsKBx77EQ

6. Hockey Stick Growth!
For centuries, the world
was poor on $3/day. And
then, like magic, in the
1800s, wealth shot up and
people began to get rich

7. A Simple Answer...
...it became ok to fail. Previously, failure had been severely punished,
even by death.
!
But people began to respect and honour innovators, entrepreneurs and
have a more relaxed attitude to failure.

8. Back to Video Games
They teach us a few things...
!
• Why it's ok to fail and start again
• Why it's important to broaden the base and bring more people into
the game
• Why no one should be expected to get it right the first time
• Why eventual success is the sum total of all previous experiences
• Why success is not just for those who were 'born' with a skill but for
those willing to learn too

9. Some Notable 'Failures'
Today's PayPal was Plan G - Plans A - F all failed
!
Nokia actually began as a Paper Mill
!
Suzuki started by making loom machines used to weave Japanese Silk
!
Nintendo started off with playing cards, vacuum cleaners, instant rice
and hotels before landing on Donkey Kong and Super Mario

10. Nigeria - The Way Forward
We wont all be entrepreneurs but we can all do with changing how we view
entrepreneurship and failure
!
As with video games, the game is a long one and we should treat every failure
as a pause point we can restart from
!
We should campaign for things that make business easier to do even if they
dont directly benefit us (CAC, business banking)
!
We owe a duty to ourselves and our country to ensure a society that properly
incentivizes and rewards effort