VietNamNet Bridge – Chinese games have been penetrating the Vietnamese market through unlicensed Vietnamese businesses dealing with Chinese distributors.

The Ministry of Communication and Information’s inspectors and the Ministry of Public Security in late March discovered many rings that lent a hand to Chinese distributors to smuggle Chinese games into Vietnam.

Nguyen Phan Phuc, an inspector, said that appropriate agencies, after a time of tracking down the smuggled games, blacklisted some unlicensed online game providers.

And they discovered from an unexpected inspection tour to the businesses that the businesses distributed smuggled games for Lemon Game and Koramgame,  two Chinese firms.

The inspectors summoned Le Ngoc Anh Tue, who was the director of Afoo Company Ltd from September 2012 to May 2013. The subsequent director of the company was Yang Zhuo, who came from Lemon Game.

In fact, Le Ngoc Anh Tue was just a “puppet”, while it was Yang Zhuo who himself founded the company, kept the stamps and legal documents relating to Afoo’s operations, and signed business contracts.

The inspectors found two server leasing contracts signed between Afoo and FPT International Communication with the signature of Le Ngoc Anh Tue as the director of Afoo.

However, Tue affirmed this was not his signature and he did not know about the business deal.

Tue also said that he had only received monthly pay like other workers of the company.

In case of Koramgame, four of its games have been brought to Vietnam through three companies with Vietnamese legal entities, including 36 Asia JSC, 3G Media and Technology JSC and Vinamoney. The founder of the three companies was Nguyen Nam Tien.

Tien was also registered as the managing director of the 3G Media and Technology JSC and Vinamoney.

Tien was the person who signed contracts on server leasing with the FPT International Telecommunication and VDC Online, worked with VNPT Online Payment JSC and reported business operations with Chinese Koramgame.

Pocketing big money

Lemon Game and Koram Game have been providing online games in Vietnam through Vietnamese businesses because they need companies which sign server leases and payment portal services. Meanwhile, the main staff are from China.

3G Media and Technology JSC, for example, in order to collect money from gamers, had to sign an online payment agreement with VNPT E-pay. Gamers paid for games through VinaPhone, MobiFone, Viettel, FPT and other scratch cards.

Inspectors have found that from May 2013 to February 2014 alone, nearly VND3 billion was paid through VNPT E-pay.

However, analysts believe that the sum of money was just “the tip of the iceberg”, while the number of the two Chinese firms’ games smuggled into Vietnam could be higher, which means actual revenue was much bigger.

Appropriate agencies have told FPT Telecommunication Company and VDC to maintain the status quo of the servers that provided the smuggled games before state management agencies make official decisions about them.

NLD