Developers behind the game "Highway Flee," inspired by Lagos' notorious traffic, sit at their booth at the WAGE 14 gaming expo. Andrew Esiebo for Al Jazeera America

Once a game is launched, competition is fierce: In the wilds of cyperspace — and in the Google Play store — games like “Kidnapped” and “Sambisa Assault” join more than a million other apps jostling for a consumer’s eyeballs. “You put a game there and it basically just disappears,” said Ogungbamila, of Kuluya.

Breakout hits for the industry have so far been few and far between. When ChopUp signed a deal with Nokia last year to promote its new game, “Downfall,” it went viral and was downloaded more than half a million times. But most Nigerian games can only boast of a few thousand downloads — not nearly enough to woo top advertisers, who pay premium prices for popular games in more developed markets.

In the United States, most mobile games are packaged as part of a “freemium” model, in which free downloads offer a way to draw in customers who are then encouraged to make small in-app purchases to unlock added features — something that’s led to the success of games like “Candy Crush Saga” and “Clash of Clans.” But so far the freemium model has failed to catch on in Nigeria. When ChopUp introduced a way to buy virtual currency with cell-phone credit, it found that less than 15 percent of its customers were willing to pay — and few became repeat customers.

“Once they hit that wall, it meant that we’re losing 85 percent of our players,” said co-founder Bayo Puddicombe. “Monetization via in-app payments may not work as well here as it does in other markets.”

In a country where less than a quarter of the population has access to the formal banking system, such growing pains could be expected. But mobile banking was only introduced in Nigeria in 2011 — four years after its introduction in Kenya, the global pioneer — and many expect it to transform the way Nigerians live and shop in a country that already boasts more than 130 million registered mobile-phone users. Throw in a controversial new biometric I.D. that will be required by everyone over the age of 16 by 2019 — part of a partnership with MasterCard that will allow holders to make electronic payments from prepaid accounts — and tens of millions of Nigerians, buying a mobile game will soon just be a few clicks away.

In the meantime, Nigerian game developers are showing their global aspirations. According to many, the biggest market for local games is overseas, particularly in India, Russia and Brazil, with Ogungbamila estimating that more than 60 percent of Kuluya’s downloads come from outside of Nigeria.

Abiola Olaniran, founder of Gamsole, said his company’s business model is built around foreign consumers. Unique among the country’s top developers, Gamsole’s products have no discernible Nigerian DNA, with games like “Candy Connect” and “Birds Republic” drawing inspiration from recognizable Western prototypes like “Candy Crush” and “Angry Birds.” Not surprisingly, Gamsole has a customer base that stretches across more than two dozen countries, with a quarter of its 9 million-plus downloads since April 2013 coming from Latin America.

“We don’t see it making sense for us to design for Nigerians alone,” said Olaniran. “We couldn’t have gotten that 9 million downloads in Nigeria.”

Growing the local customer base won’t happen overnight, but Obi and others believe the country’s population of 160 million-plus will someday embrace Nigerian video games with the same fervor it has for locally produced music and movies — the latter of which are at the core of a $5 billion industry.

“It’s a long-term play,” said Obi.

Time, after all, may be on the industry’s side. Nigerians are young — more than 60 percent of the population is under 25, and the average age is 18 — and like young people the world over, many of them are bored.

At the shopping mall, Anane disappeared to attend to a customer; when she returned, she was again dispatched by an opponent with a few swift finishing moves.

Asked after the latest loss if she might consider another hobby, she shrugged.

“It’s just to keep me busy sometimes,” she said.