OVERVIEW OF THE GAME MARKET IN VIETNAM AND AROUND THE WORLD
Around the world
According to Newzoo, the mobile gaming industry will remain the most lucrative sector of the gaming industry and is expected to reach $200 billion by 2024.
In Vietnam
Ms. Nguyen Quynh Tram, General Director of Microsoft Vietnam, stated that there are currently about 3 billion gamers worldwide, and this number is expected to increase to 4.5 billion by 2030. She also noted that the gaming market is very promising and will soon become one of the leading industries in Vietnam if opportunities are seized.
Among the top 10 game publishers in the Asia-Pacific region, 5 are from Vietnam. Vietnam also ranks 3rd in the region's Top 10 game app producers. For every 25 games downloaded, one is produced by a Vietnamese studio. As of January 2023, Vietnam had 77.93 million internet users, corresponding to a penetration rate of 79.11 TP3T, an increase of 5.91 TP3T compared to the same period in 2022.
Mr. Le Quang Tu Do, Director of the Department of Broadcasting, Television and Electronic Information, stated that gaming is a field with great potential. “An Apple representative once revealed to me that there are over 180,000 Vietnamese people working as programmers, writing applications for the Google Store and Apple Store. We are also the leading country in Southeast Asia in terms of developers,” he said.
Hyper Casual continues to grow.
In recent years, the gaming market has focused primarily on mobile games. Because their development costs are lower than console and PC games, coupled with the potential for high returns on investment, mobile gaming has been a top priority for publishers for a long time.
Hyper-casual games feature minimalist content and easy-to-understand gameplay. Players can start playing immediately after installation without any instructions.
Some classic examples of this genre include Flappy Bird – a legendary Vietnamese creation that helped revive minimalist games globally. After Flappy Bird, the hyper-casual game creation movement became even more vibrant. Math games like 2048 and Candy Crush also created a sensation in the community, and even today, they still have a loyal player base.
The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted societies and economies worldwide. But the lockdown period has also significantly contributed to attracting more users to the hyper-casual genre.
With its simple interface and unique appeal, focusing entirely on gameplay, this genre boasts a very high retention rate, making it highly addictive. This is why Microsoft management believes hyper-casual games will continue to dominate download charts. Vietnam is predicted to be among the top six countries with the highest download volumes worldwide.
According to data from market research firm Newzoo, Mr. La Xuan Thang, Director of Online Game Publishing at VNG, assessed that Vietnam in particular and Southeast Asia in general have the highest mobile game growth rate in the world, at 7.41 TP3T per year during the period 2022-2025. Specifically, Vietnam has 54.6 million players and generates $507 million in revenue. In short, Vietnam is both a potential market and a training ground for leading game developers and publishers in the gaming industry.