Since the launch of the Mijiba Education Platform in 2020, thousands of students have learnt the ins and outs of the world’s most exciting industry: gaming. This $180 billion industry has been the dream of many young people, but for too long it remained inaccessible to most.
The cornerstone of Mijiba’s Education Platform is the MAS BD Certification. Completing this course allows everyone to make money from home by joining Mijiba in the pursuit of our mission: helping developers turn fun games into successful businesses. The curriculum helps students to understand Mijiba’s platform MAS, the only ad monetization solution in the world which favors game developers and maximizes their revenue rather than the one of ad networks. By speaking with thousands of game developers every day and learning the secrets behind making a great game, our graduates are already driving the change of this industry, both in their careers and their communities.
Marvelous Uzong is one such graduate; based in Abuja, Nigeria, he leveraged the Mijiba Education Platform to relaunch his passion for game development and plans to use his experience to benefit the Nigerian game development community.
Marvelous’ interest in gaming started early, using his dad’s phone to play games like Snake and Tetris and later moving on to Android games and bigger consoles. Even then, Marvelous had a big dream: to become the creator behind great games. He took concrete steps to follow his dream, studying computer science at university with a focus on gaming. There, he took up game development with Unity, eventually uploading his first game to the Google Play store: “ It was a really great feeling to share my own projects for the first time and tell everybody ‘I’m a game developer!’ – it just felt really good.”
In all, Marvelous completed five games—as well as a few other unfinished projects. But after graduating and uploading two of his games to the app store, his dream of making a living as a developer and building his own studio started to feel out of reach, as the games were making too little revenue.
“Here, my vision started to die down a bit. And I started looking for jobs that I could use to make a living after graduation. So that was how I started looking for jobs in the gaming industry. That’s when I found Mijiba’s MAS BD Certification on Instagram.”
“I was nervous and excited at the same time: excited because I finally got the dream job I’d always been looking for in the gaming industry, and nervous because it’s something I hadn’t done before. ‘Maybe I will mess it up or something.’ I had thoughts like that. And I didn’t want to mess it up. So I was quite nervous at first, especially with my first interview.”
Since then, Marvelous has come a long way. In his work as a Games Growth Specialist at Mijiba, he has now talked to hundreds of developers, and while his success at his job is enabling him to earn a good living, it’s also given him a lot more: access to creative minds that he can learn from. Indeed, starting his own studio in Nigeria is still his ultimate goal.
“I think the most important thing I’ve learned so far is that successful developers didn’t all start as big companies with a lot of investment to back them up. From little beginnings, they grew in a step by step process. I feel if I give a bit more time to my game development dreams, I will be able to get to the point that a lot of these other big developers have reached.”
Marvelous is confident that the store of knowledge and insider experience he’s gaining while working as a Games Growth Specialist will put him on the path to success as he begins working on his own games again. Because of this, he feels his job has a bigger purpose than just earning a living: it’s giving him an inside window into the gaming industry, especially the business side of it, something he lacked when he was designing his own games earlier. “I now see this as an opportunity to learn and then channel it into my next games. And then from there, I can make better games that are better targeted towards my audience and making more revenue.”
When Marvelous began his gaming career he was doing things he thought people might like, which was mostly guesswork. But now, combining his creativity with what he has learned works in the industry, Marvelous can create a winning combination. “I started off thinking I could jump from level zero to a hundred, but I’ve seen that it’s a step by step process. And I’m really glad that I finally know what success looks like for me.”
In speaking about his work day, it’s clear that for Marvelous it’s more than just a job. “The most exciting thing about being a Games Growth Specialist is that I get to speak with all these developers with different ideas about game development, I get to talk to them about how they made their game, the processes they used, where they started from, where they are at the moment. So I’ve been able to learn a lot from their game development processes. And I’ve also been able to use the knowledge I’ve learned from Mijiba and also my own experience to impact upcoming developers.”
Marvelous has a renewed belief in his dream—developing his own games and starting a game development studio in Nigeria. The seed is growing now, nourished by the experience he’s gaining day by day, setting up the building blocks for where he wants to be in five year’s time.
At Mijiba, we are committed to democratizing the gaming industry, opening it up to anyone with a passion for it. Like Marvelous, we strongly believe that everyone can find their own success in this booming industry and we give them the tools to do so.
Are you ready? Sign up for the Mijiba MAS BD Certification today and get on the path to game industry success like Marvelous.
