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Between October 1 and 9, 2026, Lagos Life, the city-based simulation game, went from an in a single day venture to a business claiming more than $170,000 in earned and contracted revenue. Its creator, Shalom Rayhamen, constructed the primary model in eight hours.
Keeping tens of millions of gamers on-line now prices hundreds of {dollars} month-to-month, whereas digital billboards and promoting plots have develop into a supply of actual revenue for the game.
Lagos Life is free to play, however companies pay to achieve its viewers. On Friday morning, TechCabal counted 244 ads throughout 40 digital billboards in Lagos, Port Harcourt, and Abuja, three real-world cities in Nigeria.
At the disclosed fee of ₦250,000 ($188) per commercial per week, these placements equal ₦61 million ($45,870) in promoting for a single seven-day interval.
Some advertisers have booked extra weeks, taking the whole reserving worth even greater. It can be probably that extra billboard ads have gone up since TechCabal’s depend.
One digital billboard alone carries 43 ads, value ₦10.75 million ($8,083) for one week on the similar fee.
The Nigerian life-simulation game has discovered a paying market inside days of launching. Its incomes energy comes partly from promoting the identical house to a number of advertisers. Players can encounter these companies by way of rotating advertisements or faucet a billboard to browse its listings.
But retaining that revenue flowing will rely on whether or not advertisers get clients, gamers hold returning, and the price of increasing the game stays under the cash it brings in.
What ₦250,000 really buys
For many video games, monetisation is often a headache. In September 2025, Yemi Johnson, co-founder of Hyper, a Nigerian firm that builds informal video games, told TechCabal that constructing a game and offering a nice gameplay expertise would at all times conflict with how studios generate profits.
“If developers spend $0.5 to acquire a gamer, then they need to show you >$0.5 worth of ads. At a CPM [cost per mille] of $10 per thousand views, it means they need to show you 50 ads just to break even,” Johnson stated.
Video video games monetise in three main methods: they provide free entry and present advertisements to customers, cost upfront to unlock gameplay, or mix each. Some video games additionally use in-game currencies that customers can buy with actual cash.
Lagos Life has chosen the free-to-play mannequin, however its simulation-style world-building permits it to monetise rapidly, promoting promoting house in real-world locations gamers recognise, together with roadside billboards, airports, and the Lagos Lagoon.
Businesses pay to develop into a part of the world gamers spend time in. But to maintain that monetisation loop, repeat bookings might assist cowl operating prices and convey the game to break-even. Keeping advertisers paying means giving them sufficient visibility to justify one other ₦250,000 ($188) when their seven days expire.
On the morning of Friday, October 9, Lagos Life was operating 244 advertisements throughout 40 digital billboards, with every advertiser paying no less than ₦250,000 ($188) per week.
Let’s use Billboard 1, the signpost on the game’s Ikeja Road, which shows ads from 43 manufacturers—probably the most within the game—as an instance.
Each commercial stays on the display for 15 seconds earlier than the subsequent seems. Going by way of all 43 takes 10 minutes and 45 seconds earlier than the identical commercial returns.
Assuming equal, steady rotation, every model will get about 2.33% of the billboard’s display time. Across seven days, that provides as much as roughly 3 hours and 54 minutes. With this rotating mannequin, an advertiser paying ₦250,000 ($188) for the week is paying about ₦1,066 ($0.80) for every minute their ad is displayed.
TC DATA LAB / INTERACTIVE
The ₦250,000 Billboard
In Lagos Life, advertisers pay for a place on a digital billboard. But when dozens of manufacturers share one display, how a lot consideration does every really get? Step into the simulation.
IKEJA ROAD · LAGOS LIFE
ZURI MOBILE · SMARTPHONES
ZURI PHONE
THE ZURI X1 · 5G SMARTPHONE
NOW SHOWING: ZURI PHONE
AD 1 OF 43
VIRTUAL CITY SIMULATION · NOT GAME FOOTAGE
01 / CONTROL THE BILLBOARD
02 / WHAT YOUR ₦250,000 BUYS
Your share of display time
2.33%
Of complete rotation
Wait to your ad to return
10m 45s
Full rotation size
Your weekly display time
3h 54m
Assuming 24/7 rotation
Cost per seen minute
₦1,066
Screen time, not views
Who owns the display?
Share of 1 full billboard rotation
Your ad: 2.33%
Everyone else: 97.67%
The trade-off:
With 43 advertisers sharing one billboard, your commercial returns as soon as each 10 minutes and 45 seconds. You pay ₦250,000 for roughly 3 hours and 54 minutes of display time throughout the week.
Source: TechCabal’s Lagos Life reporting. The reference situation makes use of 43 ads on Billboard 1, a 15-second show period and ₦250,000 per seven-day reserving. All different eventualities are illustrative calculations, not noticed game information. Screen time assumes uninterrupted, equal rotation for seven days; it doesn’t measure precise impressions, participant visitors, clicks or gross sales.
Disclaimer: All 43 advertiser names, merchandise, slogans and artistic designs featured on this simulation are fictional and created solely for illustrative functions. They don’t symbolize precise advertisers on Lagos Life. Any resemblance to actual manufacturers or companies is coincidental. This is an impartial TechCabal editorial simulation, not official Lagos Life gameplay or promoting stock.
Whether they pay once more will depend on what number of gamers see the commercial and the business it brings them. Selling extra slots on the identical billboard will increase Lagos Life’s income, however reduces every advertiser’s share of the display.
It can be helpful to notice that gamers don’t have to attend by way of the rotation; they’ll faucet the billboard and scroll by way of its advertisers, particularly on cellular units, the place TechCabal examined the characteristic.
On October 5, Rayhamen reported that the game had generated $46,900 in revenue, principally from promoting.
Billboard advertisements have grown since that first wave, and her crew has expanded the alternatives for advertisers by opening up extra areas throughout the game’s three cities.
About 90,000 gamers had been actively on-line on the morning of Friday, October 9, giving Lagos Life a sizeable viewers to promote entry to.
● TC DATA LAB / INTERACTIVE
The ₦250,000 Eyeball Test
Lagos Life had about 90,000 gamers on-line at one level.
But what number of would possibly encounter one commercial on a
crowded digital billboard? Explore the assumptions.
MODELLED AD EXPOSURE OPPORTUNITIES
314
Estimated encounters throughout one hypothetical cross
Modelled CPM
₦796,296
Players passing
4,500
Chance of encountering ad
6.98%
01 / SELECT A ROAD SCENARIO
02 / CHANGE THE ASSUMPTIONS
90,000
10,000200,000
Reference: roughly 90,000 concurrent gamers.
5%
1%100%
Hypothetical share passing this explicit billboard.
30s
5 seconds180 seconds
Assumed steady viewing window.
43
1100
Reference: 43 advertisers, every with a 15-second slot.
03 / WATCH THE PLAYERS PASS
Traffic on the digital billboard
Moderate visitors · animated illustration
Passing
Inside viewing zone
Ad encounter
04 / THE AUDIENCE FUNNEL
From on-line gamers to at least one commercial
Passing the billboard
4,500
Modelled publicity alternatives
314
05 / THE MONEY AND THE MATH
Seven-day reserving worth
₦250,000
Reported fee
Full rotation
10m 45s
15 seconds per advertiser
Missed alternatives
4,186
Modelled passing gamers
Encounter likelihood
6.98%
One steady viewing window
Modelled CPM
₦796,296
Per 1,000 alternatives
Share of ad rotation
2.33%
Equal ad slots
The visibility downside:
Thousands could cross a billboard, however solely a fraction
could encounter one explicit ad throughout their go to.
But these gamers had been unfold throughout completely different areas. An advertiser’s viewers will depend on what number of cross its billboard whereas its ad is exhibiting and the way lengthy they continue to be inside view.
A participant passing Billboard 1 for a few seconds might miss an commercial that seems solely as soon as each 10 minutes and 45 seconds.
New billboards might permit Lagos Life to promote extra advertisements with out making manufacturers share crowded screens.
Their worth, nonetheless, will depend on attracting participant visitors. Opening extra promoting areas doesn’t routinely create extra viewers.
Evidence of what number of gamers really see every placement, and what number of go to or purchase from the business afterwards, would give advertisers a stronger motive to resume.
Lagos Life has additionally expanded promoting to its digital Lagos Lagoon, which carries about 715 advertisements, bringing the whole to about 959 placements about a week after launch, based on TechCabal’s checks.
The game has additionally erected over 20 extra billboards at its digital airports and fashionable landmarks, together with Jabi Lake Mall in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital metropolis.
How many bookings pay the payments
Rayhamen told The African Engineer that Lagos Life had about $6,500 in operating prices and that she had acquired $10,000 in AWS credit.
The largest payments had been Amazon Web Services (AWS), which hosts the game, at roughly $2,000 month-to-month, and Cloudflare, which helps defend it from bots and assaults, at about $4,000 month-to-month.
The AWS credit might cowl 5 months of eligible internet hosting prices at that fee, though greater utilization would use them up sooner.
Keeping the game operating additionally means fixing issues and constructing options that hold gamers . Rayhamen makes use of Claude Code for this work. Though she already had a subscription earlier than launching Lagos Life, Claude Code prices between $215 and $2,580, relying on the plan.
Rayhamen additionally makes use of an AI agent to gather participant complaints and requests by way of X’s developer service, she told The African Engineer.
X (previously Twitter) charges $0.005 for every normal publish retrieved. Reading 10,000 posts in a month would price about $50. Increasing that to 50,000 posts would price $250. The AI used to type these posts might add one other invoice, relying on the service and the way a lot it processes.
The game’s web site deal with is one other, smaller expense. The area, lagoslife.app, was registered on October 3, after the game initially launched on an Eliy Sites subdomain. At Cloudflare’s present introductory fee, the deal with could have cost about $8.20 to register, with renewal at $14.20 yearly.
TechCabal’s checks of different city-based addresses, together with phlife.app, portharcourtlife.app, onitshalife.app, beninlife.app, owerrilife.app, abeokutalife.app, and kadunalife.app, discovered constant pricing for normal .app registrations.
The browser game frenzy can be creating one other business: individuals are shopping for city-based domains, comparable to kanolife.app, to resell. This might push up area prices for builders who wish to construct comparable simulation video games round different cities, notably if the addresses they need are already owned.
Buying an deal with, nonetheless, is a small a part of constructing one other digital metropolis. The bigger bills are the individuals creating it, the programs retaining it on-line, and the advertising and marketing wanted to carry gamers in.
Purely as an estimate, Lagos Life’s month-to-month bills might attain about $10,000 in a higher-spending situation, with a five-year area registration including roughly $65 upfront.
Let’s put these bills towards the game’s promoting revenue from what we all know.
A lean operation might work with an illustrative funds of $10,000 month-to-month. The disclosed internet hosting and safety payments would take $6,000, leaving $4,000 for a small quantity of paid assist, advertising and marketing, AI instruments, and different routine bills. This assumes the founders proceed doing a lot of the work themselves.
A center case permits extra room to rent and develop. Doubling the infrastructure allowance to $12,000, setting apart $8,000 for individuals and one other $5,000 for advertising and marketing, instruments, and administration would carry month-to-month spending to $25,000.
A sooner enlargement might take that funds to $50,000: $20,000 for infrastructure, $18,000 for individuals, and $12,000 for advertising and marketing and different operating bills. These are budgets for testing how the business might develop, not figures from the accounts of Vatar, the integrated firm constructing Lagos Life.
Now take into account what one commercial contributes. At an illustrative change fee of ₦1,329.91 per greenback, a ₦250,000 ($188) weekly reserving brings in about $188. Setting apart an assumed 5% for assortment prices and refunds leaves roughly $179 to pay the payments.
The $10,000 operation would wish 56 seven-day bookings in a 30-day month to cowl its operating prices earlier than tax. The $25,000 operation would wish 140 bookings, whereas the $50,000 operation would wish 280.
An easier technique to image that is the variety of advertisements that should stay paid for all through the month. The three budgets would require roughly 14, 33, or 66, respectively, to stay constantly occupied, with every reserving renewed or changed on the finish of its week.
Even the very best determine is just about a quarter of the 244 ads TechCabal counted. Keeping 61 slots paid for all through a 30-day month would usher in roughly $46,700 after the assumed deductions, nearly sufficient to cowl the faster-expansion funds.
The alternative is substantial, but it surely will depend on repeat gross sales. Several weeks paid upfront give Lagos Life money instantly, whereas committing it to displaying these ads later.
Vatar’s $500,000 angel round provides it time to construct that repeat business. Assuming the total quantity stays obtainable and no income is available in, it will cowl about 50 months at $10,000 month-to-month spending, 20 months at $25,000, or 10 months at $50,000. These estimates assume spending stays unchanged.
Rayhamen’s reported $10,000 AWS credit score might cowl 5 months of eligible internet hosting prices, primarily based on the $2,000 month-to-month invoice she disclosed. But greater utilization would exhaust the credit score sooner.
Advertising revenue would cut back how a lot of the funding the corporate spends every month. Once repeat bookings cowl operating prices, the funding can assist additional enlargement. Until then, each new rent and advertising and marketing marketing campaign must carry the game nearer to incomes sufficient to pay for itself.
Making a larger world pay
Lagos Life has already added about 21 extra digital billboards at airports and different premium landmarks. Advertising on the airport signposts, about 10 of them, prices ₦500,000 ($376) per slot for seven days.
A Handi commercial on an airport billboard in Lagos Life, the place a slot prices ₦500,000 for seven days. The game has about 4 airport billboards in Lagos, three in Port Harcourt, and three in Abuja. Image Source: TechCabal screenshot taken from the Lagos Life game.
TechCabal’s estimates don’t account for potential bookings on these billboards or the Lagos Lagoon slots, the place various reserving costs make income tougher to estimate with out disclosures.
Rayhamen makes use of Claude Code and Three.js, a instrument for creating 3D environments, to construct the game’s digital world. Adding cities provides Lagos Life extra locations to promote promoting, but additionally means extra work creating areas, fixing issues, and supporting gamers. Each new metropolis wants to draw sufficient exercise to justify these prices.
Keeping that promoting revenue flowing means retaining avid gamers engaged. Familiar landmarks, digital jobs, and relationships give gamers lives to develop, and a few are already incomes actual cash.
Players collect inside Lagos Life’s model of Abuja’s Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, the place digital promoting slots price ₦500,000 a week. Image Source: TechCabal, taken from the Lagos Life game.
A therapist stated on X (previously Twitter) that he had secured paid work by way of digital periods within the game, whereas some gamers are reselling promoting slots on the digital lagoon, doubtlessly at a markup.
More cities can lengthen these tales and incomes alternatives, including actual monetary incentives for individuals to play.
The monetary return, nonetheless, will depend on gamers coming again typically sufficient to make advertisers renew their bookings. Lagos Life can hold constructing billboards, however getting companies to pay for them repeatedly will rely on the life occurring round them.
Exchange fee = ₦1,329.9/$1
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