At the Think Apps 2023 event organized by Google in Ho Chi Minh City at the end of July, citing a report by DataAI & AppMagic, a Google representative said: from 2019 to the first quarter of 2023, Vietnam jumped from the top 15 to the top 5 globally in terms of app downloads, equivalent to 4.2 billion downloads.
Recently, the famous news agency Bloomberg also evaluated Vietnam as a gaming powerhouse. Bloomberg cited data showing that Vietnam is in the top 5 countries producing mobile games in the world, based on downloads in the first six months of 2023.
Assessing the potential, advantages and development opportunities of the Vietnamese gaming industry, Mr. Le Quang Tu Do, Director of the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information (Ministry of Information and Communications) said that gaming is an industry that contributes very well to the development of the country in the era of the 4.0 industrial revolution. The Vietnamese gaming industry currently has two groups: the game production group and the game publishing group. We have great potential in the game production group. Currently, Vietnam has many programmers who are qualified to make games for the two largest stores, Google and Apple. As Apple announced, there are 180,000 Vietnamese people making applications, the largest of which is games and earning foreign currency. We produce games but do not sell domestically but sell abroad, sell on stores, then collect money from abroad.
Mr. Le Quang Tu Do added that statistics compiled by the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information show that about 50% of popular mobile games today originate from Vietnam, and we can do part of them (called outsourcing), or write them completely. Vietnamese people have a huge advantage in simple games, while complex games (G1) are rare. Out of every 25 games uploaded to stores, 1 game is from Vietnam, a much higher rate than other countries. Thus, games are a smokeless industry in which Vietnam has many advantages in developing and attracting foreign currency.
According to data from a number of market research companies, Vietnam in particular and Southeast Asia in general is the region with the highest mobile game growth rate in the world, at 7.4% per year in the period 2022 - 2025. Vietnam's game market ranks 5th in Southeast Asia in terms of revenue.
The Ministry of Information and Communications has set a goal that in the next 5 years, the Vietnamese gaming industry will reach the revenue milestone of 1 billion USD, while at the same time increasing the number of operating gaming businesses, from 30 currently operating businesses to the number equal to the golden age of the gaming industry of 100-150 businesses, and calling for about 400 game production startups to join the community.
Although Vietnam has about 33 million mobile gamers, ranking 3rd after Thailand and Indonesia in Southeast Asia (Digital 2022: Global Overview Report), compared to the population size and telecommunications infrastructure development level of some countries in the region, the revenue of Vietnam's online gaming industry in recent years is still very modest and Vietnam is considered a potential market with a lot of room for development.
According to a report by the Ministry of Information and Communications, in 2021, the total revenue of the Vietnamese gaming industry is estimated to reach 14,500 billion VND, an increase of 11% compared to 2020. But in reality, the revenue of the Vietnamese gaming industry could be much larger.
According to domestic and foreign experts, as well as market research organizations, the development of a series of new technologies such as: 5G, Blockchain, cloud computing... and strong improvements in online gaming hardware (PC, smartphone) in recent times have helped Vietnam rapidly increase the number of gamers, increase revenue and profits and opportunities to participate in the online gaming industry of companies around the world.
In fact, over the past years, seizing the opportunity in the development trend of the world's gaming industry, online game production and publishing companies in Vietnam have taken advantage of abundant, high-quality human resources to focus on developing games in genres such as: Mmorpg (multiplayer online role-playing game), Turn base (turn-based tactical battle formation game), Moba (multiplayer online arena game), Casual (popular, simple game), SLG (tactical simulation game), RPG (role-playing game),...
Especially with the advantage of a young population, easily adapting and accepting new waves of technology, Vietnam is considered a "commercial avenue" for the world's leading online game publishing companies from Japan, Korea, China and North America.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Information and Communications, nearly 85% of G1 games legally released in Vietnam originate from foreign countries, of which China accounts for more than 76% of the total number of G1 games released.
The number of Vietnamese companies and individuals participating in the production and release of games for the global market is quite large. As of 2021, Google statistics show that there are about 430,000 game developers in Vietnam and 70% of Vietnamese game developers are targeting the global mobile game market. According to statistics from Sensor Tower and the Vietnam Game Studio Club, there are currently about 5,000 games produced by Vietnamese people, focusing mainly on topics and content for children, entertainment, and education.
Solving difficulties for Vietnamese gaming industry
Assessing the human resources for game development in Vietnam, they are highly qualified, have good programming skills, are hard-working, diligent and industrious. A Vietnamese programmer can even create a product from A to Z, so game startups in Vietnam have a very favorable development environment. Just a group of 2-3 people, with ideas and investment connections, can develop a game. However, Mr. Le Quang Tu Do believes that the mobile game industry in Vietnam still has many challenges, with the biggest limitation being that businesses have not yet come together.
He said: "In the past 10 years, the biggest limitation of the Vietnamese gaming industry is that it chose to go alone to go fast, so only a few businesses have developed, but the gaming community has not. Because they do not go together, they are facing more and more difficulties. Because they do not go together, they cannot take advantage of each other."
The parties that are good at writing and making games have no experience in publishing, so they have little access to users. The parties that are very good at publishing cannot find quality Vietnamese games. This leads to the situation where most Vietnamese people play foreign games, while Vietnamese companies produce games that are not for domestic players.
Besides, there are also shortcomings for the gaming industry such as the Ministry of Finance's plan to introduce Special Consumption Tax into online games, or the development of the gaming industry in particular and the internet in general is very fast and strong but policies have not kept up...
Pointing out that the Vietnamese gaming industry is facing three major problems: competing with illegal cross-border games; game businesses (publishers) cannot buy good games from abroad because they sell across borders; and game producers are still very fragmented and cannot unite with each other, Mr. Le Quang Tu Do said that the Ministry of Information and Communications is determined to resolve the three major problems mentioned above.
Specifically, with the task of combating pirated games, the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information has established a regular mechanism with Google and Apple to scan, detect and request removal. The Department has established a team/group with 10 core businesses to take turns scanning the network/store to detect pirated games and promptly request Google and Apple to prevent them.
Next is blocking payments for games. Recently, the Ministry of Information and Communications held a conference on solutions to prevent payments for games. It is stipulated that payments for illegal games and unlicensed games are not allowed. Currently, payment intermediary businesses and banks are still paying a lot for these types of games because they do not know. Therefore, the Ministry connects and sends a list of licensed games, and through the scanning process, sends unlicensed games to these units for elimination.
In addition to the objective difficulties, in general, payment intermediary businesses, banks, the State Bank, and the Ministry of Public Security all agree that this issue will be drastically rectified in the near future. To combat illegal games, there are two major solutions: scanning, detecting, removing, and blocking payments.
Regarding the second major issue, there must be policies to support the gaming industry, especially not imposing special consumption tax. The Ministry of Information and Communications, directly the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information, has worked and connected with the functional units of the Ministry of Finance, VCCI, and the General Department of Taxation to provide information, current situation and propose not to impose special consumption tax on the gaming sector, because this is a sector that needs support to develop.
The Ministry is also consulting to shorten procedures, such as the draft Decree replacing Decree 72 of the Government on Internet and online information management, which removes some licenses for the gaming industry, removes some administrative procedures, creating more favorable and open conditions for gaming businesses to develop.
In addition, the Ministry is also researching pilot policies (sandbox) for new game genres such as Blockchain games, NFT games, proposing the Prime Minister, ministries and branches to jointly develop.
The third major issue is connecting and gathering to develop together. In 2022, the Ministry established the Alliance of Game Producers and Publishers and launched it on June 30, 2022. Since then, it has organized 3 conferences to connect and cooperate to promote the development of the game industry and has achieved very positive results.
On April 1, 2023, for the first time, the Department coordinated with a number of units to organize the Game Festival, including very large activities such as the Vietnam Game Awards, the first time awarding game awards to encourage game businesses, game programmers, prioritizing Vietnamese games and categories for Vietnamese games.
This year, the Department will connect and gather with universities that need to train programmers in the game industry. It has currently connected with Ton Duc Thang University, FPT University, and the Academy of Posts and Telecommunications Technology - all of which have training needs. Accordingly, game businesses will accept students from these schools for internships, training, and recruit good and excellent students as output for students.
In parallel with removing the above bottlenecks, Mr. Tu Do said that currently, the Alliance of Game Producers and Publishers under the direction of the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information is also promoting communication to change the image of games, that this is an industry that contributes very well to the development of the country in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, both programming and technology, making the game industry bring high income... At the same time, encourage the construction and development of educational games about the country's culture and history.
With the above communication plan, we will gradually change the awareness of the community, people and society about the game industry and thus promote the development of this industry./.
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