Standing on the most delicious land in the gaming industry, how does Vietnam take advantage?

Vietnam is located in the Asia Pacific region, which accounts for half of the global gaming industry revenue. Domestic enterprises have made good use of this opportunity, but the space is still very large and many barriers prevent this segment from developing to its full potential.

Mr. La Xuan Thang, Head of Regional Publishing of VNGGames, provided data showing that the global game industry scale in 2022 will reach $184 billion, a huge industry.

In which, half of the market is in the Asia Pacific region, so Vietnam is standing on the most delicious piece of cake in the industry. Domestic production and distribution enterprises have made good use of this opportunity.

Currently, the number of game players in Vietnam reaches 50 million people, or about 50% of the population – the highest in Southeast Asia. The percentage of gamers willing to pay is also at the top of the region.

In addition, the number of people who do not have access to the Internet currently accounts for about 21%, second only to Indonesia.

These figures show the huge potential of the game market in Vietnam.

Previously, Mr. Le Quang Tu Do – Director of the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information (Ministry of Information and Communications), also gave data proving that Vietnam has an important position globally in the production of games with high quality. small and medium scale. Of the top 10 game studios in Asia Pacific and Australia, Vietnam accounts for half. For every 25 games put on iOS and Android app stores, there is 1 game from Vietnam. And yet, 50% of the most played mobile games originate from Vietnam.

However, the revenue of the game industry in Vietnam is still very low in the region and globally. Particularly for online games, revenue is currently only about 665 million USD, ranking 5th in the region. This revenue also accounts for less than 1% of global revenue, indicating that there is wide open space left to tap.

Not to mention more than half of this revenue flows to other countries, mainly Singapore – where Vietnamese businesses register their headquarters to take advantage of the preferential policies here.

To take advantage of the above opportunities and limit the flow of Vietnamese money to other countries, the parties emphasized on adjusting policies, changing perceptions and increasing personnel for the game industry.

Mr. Le Quang Tu Do said that he is studying and proposing to reduce a number of taxes, fees and procedures to create an open business environment for businesses. At the same time, there is a policy to encourage new games based on Blockchain, HTML5.

Along with that, both the government and businesses are propagating to change the perception of the gaming industry to attract personnel working in this field.

Despite the development, the Vietnamese game industry is not outside of the general impact of the whole world in the context of the current economic downturn. The revenue of paid games decreased, while the group of cheap or free games increased, according to Mr. La Xuan Thang.

In the last 12 months, sales of high-cost games have declined, with role-playing games (RPG Games) dropping 11%. This is the game segment that brings the highest revenue in the country.

Meanwhile, the total revenue of low-cost games increased, such as Hyper Casual, Action – Moba – eSports series.

A representative of VNGGames said that the economic impact caused players to switch to more entertainment games. Therefore, domestic game enterprises are shifting to provide games from mid-core (medium difficulty) to easier, casual genres to reach customers.

Until the end of 2023, the situation of the game industry is still affected by the macro economy. Experts predict this industry will prosper again in 2024, with global revenue of nearly 194 billion USD.