According to data from a market research company, Vietnam and the Southeast Asian region had the fastest mobile game growth rate in the world with 7.4% a year from 2022-2025. Therefore, the Ministry of Information and Communications sets a goal that in the next five years (by 2030), the Vietnamese gaming industry will reach a revenue of 1 billion USD.

Ample room for Vietnam’s game industry growth

According to game companies, the goal is reachable as the industry is booming around the world. In the Southeast Asian market, the total market scale was 4.75 billion USD in 2021 and it is projected to climb to 7.14 billion in 2026.

Currently, Indonesia is the country with the highest revenue from online games, followed by the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam. Of which, revenue from the industry in Vietnam is exceeding 500 million USD with more than 50% of the population has accessed to the game industry.

Online game production and publishing companies in Vietnam have taken advantage of abundant and high-quality human resources to focus on developing games of genres such as multiplayer online role-playing game (Mmorpg), turn base (turn-based attack tactical battle game), Moba (multiplayer online arena game), Casual (popular, simple game), SLG (tactical simulation game), and RPG (role-playing game), among others.

Vietnam ranks among the top five countries in the world regarding app downloads, with over 35,000 game programmers, a number comparable to China. Notably, the game programming team in Vietnam is young, technically skilled and highly proficient in mathematical analysis and programming. Vietnam has the advantage of affordable game launches and competitive labour costs. Vietnamese game companies excel at identifying trends and developing games based on market demand.

Emily Nguyen, Head of Sales for Google Ads – Gaming and Apps in Vietnam

New mindset needed to transform game industry

However, the profit margin after tax of Vietnam’s game industry is still modest, only 3-5% of the total revenue. In particular, the revenue in the mobile game market segment of Vietnamese enterprises only accounts for 22%, the rest belongs to businesses not based in Vietnam. The revenue of the Vietnamese game industry is currently less than 0.5% of the total global value.

Le Quang Tu Do, Director of the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information (DIT) of the Ministry of Information and Communications acknowledged that in the immediate future, it is necessary to develop a good foundation, especially formal training. In 2023, the department coordinated with the Vietnam Academy of Posts and Telecommunications and VTC Corporation to provide official training programmes for the industry.

Besides technology, attracting capital can be considered an important driving force to help Vietnam quickly accelerate to catch up with the development of the game markets in other countries.

However, La Xuan Thang, Director of Online Game Publishing of VNG Game, said that in order to attract investment in game projects, game producers still require visions and ideas to produce quality products, which are recognised by the gaming community. Therefore, although investment capital is needed, it is not the first factor to develop the game industry, but it is the results that this industry achieves as it succeeds./.