Facebook games a threat to Vietnamese games

Facebook games a threat to Vietnamese games

VietNamNet Bridge – Facebook’s games have become more and more popular in Vietnam, which has raised big worry to Vietnamese games producers.

“In five years, Vietnamese people would play games on Facebook, while domestic games producers would die,” warned Le Hong Minh, general Director of VNG.

Minh tried to give an early warning about the prospect of made-in-Vietnam games amid the increasing popularity of Facebook’s games. Experts all say that Minh has every reason to give that warning.
Game Facebook đe dọa game Việt

Office workers get addicted to Facebook games

Facebook, a social network, not only helps people exchange and share views, but also the place which provides a lot of interesting games.

Nguyen Thi Hien, 25, an office worker in HCM City, said she is playing farm game on Facebook, and she plays it every day. Hien said though she is very busy with her daily works, she does not intend to give up the game. 

Every day she tries to use every free minute to make the cultivation, animal husbandry, and tries to harvest crops on schedule. Sometimes she has to get up in midnight to harvest the crops, because she fears the fruits would be stolen by someone. Therefore, the alarm clocks ring many times during the night. At the office, she tries to play games at any time she can, and of course, during the lunchtime.

Nguyen Anh Tuan, 32, who lives in HCM City, also said he has got “addicted” to Facebook’s games. He is really interested in the game called “Mafia wars” which teaches the skills to become a real “godfather.”

Tuan also said that he tries to use every free minute to play this game. Though it is just a game, he feels that he can easily loose temper after a time of playing the game.

A lot of other people said they can spend 9-10 hours a day to play games on the social network. Some of them revealed that they many times intended to give up the games to focus on the works and families. However, it is really very difficult to do that, because those, who once played games, have become addicted to the games.

The big threat to Vietnamese games

The majority of the companies that provide games on Facebook are foreign ones, including Zynga, which specializes in providing games on the world’s biggest social networks.

Some domestic companies have also posted their games on the social network. However, the games all are sourced from countries. They pay royalties to foreign companies to obtain the right to distribute in Vietnam under the mode of webgame.

All the games on Facebook are well known which have attracted a lot of players. Less famous games can attract hundreds of thousands of players, while more famous ones can attract tens of millions of players. Words with Friends, for example, the choice of many Vietnamese gamers, has attracted 19.4 million players.

In principle, Facebook’s games would not be a threat to Vietnamese games, if Vietnamese game producers can join a healthy competition with the giant. However, the problem is that Facebook is a service of a foreign company operating in Vietnam. Therefore, it does not bear any sanctions by domestic agencies, and neither the games on the network.

As the games on Facebook do not have to go through any content test in Vietnam, a lot of games products can reach out to Vietnamese people, from the violent games or the games with “sensitive” contents. This has put domestic game producers into an unhealthy competition.

As such, with the current policies, the foreign companies that provide digital content, can operate freely in Vietnam. Meanwhile, the domestic enterprises, which have to follow policies and pay tax to the state, cannot receive the protection from the State.

Buu Dien