VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnam’s game programming technology is developing robustly as many local game studios want to go beyond the international game market. The race in the computer game programming industry in Vietnam is hotter than ever.

A series of gaming products created by small and large studios have been released in recent years. Many games have had a great numbers of players and brought about hundreds of thousands of US dollars of revenue for the producer.

From the initial success

Among the most well-known game development studios in Vietnam is Hiker Games. The former name is Emobi Games.

This can be seen as the leading studio in Vietnam with many unique and quality game products such as 2112, 7554 or Mong Vo Lam.

However, the first product of Hiker Games that made a breakthrough in the international market is Toy Quest. This is the first Vietnamese games appearing on the Steam system.

A locally-made game.

Perhaps Nguyen Ha Dong’s Flappy Bird is the most famous Vietnamese game on the international market. The success of Flappy Bird is the best answer to the question: "Are Vietnamese games good enough to reach out to the world?"

The success of “Flappy Bird” is great motivation for young people, new in the game industry, to cherish the ambition of bringing Vietnamese games to the world.

The difficulties

Toy Quest, the first VN game on Steam

However, the success of “Flappy Bird” is only a small part of the many failures of game studios in Vietnam. It is tough to develop computer games in Vietnam and much more difficult to bring the local games to international players.

Game production technologies have not been invested in properly. Vietnam needs many more specialists on 2D, 3D drawing and motion and effect experts.

The most famous VN game - Flappy Bird

There is also the huge cost of game production. Because of pressure from investment capital, Vietnamese game makers don’t dare invest heavily to create quality game products.

It is also difficult to bring the games to Vietnamese and foreign players.

To meet the tastes of players, particularly foreign players, is a big challenge.

The ambition is to penetrate into the Asian game market

Vietnamese game programmers.

Most recently, a Made-in-Vietnam game called “Loan Dau Vo Lam” was launched, as the first Vietnamese game distributed throughout Asia.

This is a product developed by Hiker Games, in cooperation with SohaGame.

It is somewhat "risky" for Hiker Games to launch this game throughout Asia, but with its experience, this studio believes that it will be a success.

This games are designed based on the most modern Engine Unity graphic platform, plus a "strange" storyline, which is a combination of Vietnamese history and Chinese kungfu.

Hiker Games artists worked on characters of "Loan Dau Vo Lam".

"Loan Dau Vo Lam" have the characters in Vietnam's legends: Au Co and Lac Long Quan, Son Tinh and Thuy Tinh.

This product marked a significant milestone for Vietnam as the first gaming product was released across Asia.

From the initial success, it is hoped that despite difficulties, Vietnamese game studios will continue to realize their ambition.

Tri Thuc Tre