VietNamNet Bridge – Illegal online games are being accessed in
Viet Nam through servers from other countries, and industry observers are
warning the country could be flooded with such products from mainland China and
South Korea in the near future.
The deputy director of an online
game publishing company who wanted to remain anonymous said: "It is hard
to say exactly how many companies are sending illegal games into Viet Nam and
how many illegal games are being played.
"Only people working in the
sector can recognise which is legal or illegal."
One of foreign companies that has
released illegal games in the country is Koram Games Limited.
In an introduction on recruitment
website www.timviecnhanh.com, Koram Games says it is an international company
based in Hong Kong. It has an office on Hau Giang Street in HCM City's Tan Binh
District. It employs between 20 – 50 people, the company says.
Vietnamese law does not allow 100
per cent foreign owned companies to directly do business and publish online
games in the country.
However, Koram Games has launched
four online games in the market in the last 12 months or so.
According to several online game
publishing companies in Viet Nam, the markets in China and South Korea have
saturated, especially the market for client games and web games.
Enterprises in these two
countries are thus trying to expand their markets abroad, and Viet Nam is a
main target because it is the biggest market in Southeast Asia with 13 million
gamers.
According to Le Hong Minh,
general director of VNG, the first company to launch licensed online games in
Viet Nam, the country's market has great potential because, in the future, 20
million televisions could become game devices and 60 mobile phone users could
become mobile gamers.
Playing online games on PCs is
expected to have a turnover of VND4.6 trillion (US$219 million) this year. It
could increase 10-20 times in the next eight years, Minh said.
Minh also said the "smooth
business" that Koram Games was doing, despite its illegality, showed the
possibility of a massive wave of illegal games from China and South Korea
flooding the country.
Domestic games hurt
Because the servers through which
the illegal games are accessed in Viet Nam are located in other countries,
local authorities cannot intervene.
Online games are legally
published in Viet Nam under co-operation agreements with foreign firms, and
both sides have to pay taxes under Vietnamese law. But, according to the deputy
director, foreign enterprises sending games to the Viet Nam market illegally
only have to pay 10 per cent commission to enterprises offering payment
solutions.
This makes it difficult for
Vietnamese gaming companies to be competitive, because they are already at a
disadvantage in terms of technological development.
For instance, the three games
that have been published in Viet Nam by Koram – www.pvtq2.com, www.3quoc.com
and www.tiencanh.com – allow payment with international cards like Visa,
Mastercard, or ATM cards.
However, since most gamers in
Viet Nam are teenagers and students who do not have credit or ATM cards, they
mostly use cash to buy deposit cards from companies like Viettel, MobiFone,
VinaPhone, MegaCard, FPT and VTC. These cards are then used to pay for playing
the games.
The deposit card issuers have
arrangements with intermediary companies that pass on payments to the foreign
companies.
Vietnamese companies say that if
authorities in the country were to ban payment with these cards, illegal games
would not be able to dominate the market.
VietNamNet/VNS
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