The bustling game market in Viet Nam is offering numerous opportunities for developers to expand their market share, according to experts.

Le Quang Tu Do, Director of the Authority of Broadcasting, Television and Electronic Information under the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC), cited data from App Annie 2020 showing that Viet Nam ranks seventh in the world, and second in Southeast Asia, in the number of game downloads.

The country ranks third in the region in terms of game application manufacturers. For every 25 games downloaded, there is one produced in Vietnamese studios. According to the statistics of Sensor Tower and the Viet Nam Game Studio Club, there are currently about 5,000 games produced by Vietnamese people, mostly for children, entertainment, and education.

Do said that the wage of each game developer in Viet Nam is about VND187 million (US$7,975) per year, while that of each artist is about VND389 million ($16,590) annually, which is higher than the average income of Vietnamese people.

Many training establishments have provided intense programmes in game-related areas, meeting the demand for human resources in the domestic game market.

A report from domestic game enterprises showed that the sector's revenue reached over VND7 trillion ($298.47 million) in 2021, and estimates for 2022 are at least VND10 trillion.

According to experts, in 2021, Viet Nam surged as the “capital” of applying blockchain technology and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) with a series of games produced and published by Vietnamese people.

Pham Van Thanh, Director of VTC Game, said that a young population, of which more than half are under the age of 25, coupled with the prevalence of the internet and the high rate of mobile device usage, is an important advantage of Viet Nam in making a breakthrough for the game market.

Besides being a potential market in terms of revenue, Viet Nam has for many years become a reliable "outsource" destination for major game publishers worldwide.

According to Do, MIC is building a strategy for game development in the 2022-27 period to design policies to protect and promote game manufacturing in Viet Nam, reducing its dependence on foreign-published games and increasing the income of domestic firms while preventing violations in the field.

At the same time, the sector will pay greater attention to human resources for the game sector and build a network of global data centres to serve developers and publishers in the Vietnamese market.

Do advised local game production and publishers to coordinate with one another for long-term and sustainable development while expanding their market and exporting their products to promote the culture and image of Viet Nam. — VNS