Bloomberg: 'Vietnam is becoming a gaming powerhouse'

A decade after Flappy Bird became world famous, Vietnam is considered a leading place for game development, instead of just software outsourcing.

According to Bloomberg , at the Vietnam GameVerse 2023 event organized by VnExpress in early April in Ho Chi Minh City, government representatives emphasized the leading factor, promoting Vietnam to become the hottest entertainment application development market in the region. Vietnam considers mobile games as an export asset, playing an important role in the emerging technology sector instead of just focusing on outsourcing as before. This change is an acknowledgement of the economic potential of the gaming industry, estimated to exceed 300 billion USD next year, with an annual growth rate of over 7% each year.

A female employee is designing game images. Photo: Bloomberg

According to Data.ai, Vietnam is now among the top five countries in the world for mobile game production, based on downloads in the first half of 2023. But for those familiar with the field, the rise of the video game industry is not too surprising, especially with the potential coming from one of the highest smartphone penetration rates in Asia, with half under 30 years old.

The gaming industry is also being led by a growing number of young, passionate and talented developers. Students are also being exposed to programming early in schools, while some universities have plans to incorporate game development into their curriculum.

“There is a big, daring spirit that is being demonstrated in Ho Chi Minh City – the Silicon Valley of Vietnam. The technical talent of the people here is quite outstanding,” commented Khoi Nguyen, founder of game development tool company Good Story Time. Before returning to work in Vietnam, Khoi was the chief engineer for Oculus VR by Meta in Silicon Valley.

Vietnam first came to the attention of global gamers in 2013 after developer Nguyen Ha Dong created Flappy Bird , a simple game that was downloaded by millions of people until Dong removed it from the app store. The product fueled the then generation of game developers that anyone could have a chance at success, even with small but bold ideas.

Thai Thanh Liem, CEO of game studio Topebox, recalls the excitement of the early days a decade ago. He and his team worked tirelessly to create free-to-play gaming apps. “We ate, slept, and worked together in the attic,” he recalls of nights spent huddled around a laptop in the attic of a small house.

Today, game studios are springing up across the country, competing to create the next blockbuster. The most notable is Amanotes’ Magic Tiles 3 , which ranked among the top 20 most downloaded games globally last year, according to Sensor Tower. The game has now been downloaded more than a billion times since its 2017 release.

OneSoft, meanwhile, is the world's fourth-largest mobile game publisher based on downloads from the App Store and Google Play, according to Data.ai. Zego Studio also ranked ninth among app and game makers worldwide by downloads in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to Sensor Tower. Bill Vo, co-founder and CEO of Amanotes, said its games have had more than three billion downloads combined.

“People don’t know Amanotes is a Vietnamese company,” said Bill Vo. “We position ourselves as a global company.”

However, Vietnamese developers are facing increasing challenges in the global gaming market as governments impose data control regulations. These changes force studios to devote resources to directly interacting with players and encouraging them to provide information so developers can customize their games.

“This approach can increase costs for large companies, and small companies will also face difficulties,” said Kelly Wong, vice president of VNG’s gaming entertainment division. “The Flappy Bird model will no longer exist.”

In fact, most popular games produced in Vietnam are released for free and have simple interfaces. Some companies implement paid features, but face barriers in terms of players. In addition, games for console systems such as PlayStation and Xbox are quite rare because they require several years and more than 100 million USD in investment.

"However, Vietnamese game developers are accumulating experience and applying new technology to reduce production costs while still being able to create larger-scale products," said Binh Tran, co-founder of Ascend Vietnam Ventures.

Meanwhile, the Vietnamese government is also taking steps to support the development of the gaming sector. Online games were initially proposed by the Ministry of Finance to be subject to special consumption tax in the draft at the beginning of the year. However, according to the opinion of the Government Standing Committee on July 24, this sector will not be subject to this tax.

Bao Lam

Vnexpress.net