30 Aug 2022

Once an in thing,  games room became unpopular with the discovery of gadgets such as PlayStation, Xbox and others.

The emergence of such gadgets led to the closure of many games room both in cities and villages including Serowe.

When Mr Bolokang   Mokwenaotsile decided to take a gap year from his studies, the thought of a games room business came to his mind, probably because it is a boy’s thing or because of lack of recreational facilities in Serowe.

With a clear vision to create something that could remove youngsters from the streets, Mr Mokwenaotsile submitted  a compelling proposal to the then Ministry of Youth, Sport and Culture Development to source funding in 2020.

The funding led to the birth of Dolphin Territory Sport.

In an Mr Mokwenaotsile said despite the gaming market relatively low in Botswana, he jumped into it because he wanted to do something unique.

In December 2021 he roped in Mr Newman Stephen, as the manager in charge of day to day operations.

Dolphin Territory Sport’s popularity proved true the notion that any business targeting children and women can never go wrong.  

To cater for children, Mr Stephen said,  the business provides arcade games, strategy games, adventurous games, shooting games and sport games.

Although the target was youth, Mr Stephen said they had pool tables that had attracted older people, mostly men.

To enjoy the games patrons have to part with P5 for a period of 15 minutes while  for pool tables, gamers pay P2 in order to play.

The budding entrepreneur said he had noticed that there were regular and new faces coming to the facility each day.

He said the children were easy to work with, except instances when they exceed the agreed time.

He said outdated computer software’s that needed updating was another challenge, citing that out of the three computers they had, only one was working. 

He also said  though the were   two pool tables only one was working.

Mr Stephen said he changed his operating times from 9am to 11am until late evening, adding that the shift system in schools had worked in his favor because children now had the time to while away at the games room.  

Every now and then they organised pool table tournaments as a way of injecting more money into the business.

 “The tournament attract people from as far as Gaborone and they play for the whole night,” he said.

 Mr Stephen was confident that wherever they hosted a tournament, they doubled their usual profits.

He said they had observed that the pool gamers came accompanied by those who would be interested in playing other games.

He said he had observed that he made more profit during normal school days because children tended to spare some of their pocket money for the games.

“Dolphin Territory Sport is open for your children’s recreation and leisure so it would be best for you to give  them the resources to access it” he said.

He went on to state that games room shielded children from activities that could ruin their future such as pick-pocketing, smoking and drinking alcohol.

The youthful entrepreneur  aspires to see the games room business spread to neighbouring villages such as Mabeleapodi, Paje and Mogorosi. Ends