VietNamNet Bridge – The appearance of a series of online games in Vietnam in the past several years has proven that online gaming is a new, attractive business. Vietnamese online game companies are preparing for made-in-Vietnam games.

The land of potential

“Computer games and digital information content is an industry with a lot of potential in Vietnam and in the world as well. And I believe that the online game industry can really develop in Vietnam when we have made-in-Vietnam games,” said Le Hong Minh, Chairman of the Board of Directors of VinaGame.

To make an online game, a game company needs many qualified workers. A game is made in various stages, ranging from the idea, software writing, graphic making, designing, translation, web management, and many other tasks.

“VinaGame has a very specific plan to produce our own games with two game studios set up in HCM City and Hanoi already. We will also work with game studios of countries with advanced game industries to develop a contingent of staff for ourselves,” Mr. Minh revealed.

The door begins to open

Some game companies have started to recruit and train personnel for producing games because this industry is predicted to need huge human resources in the near future.

In the past one year, some vocational training centres have carefully surveyed the demands for workforce of the online, digital content market to design training courses to create professional game makers for the local market.

VinaGame was considered the pioneer when it joined hands with IT faculties of some universities and IT institutes in training. Based on the needs of VinaGames, those training units have designed curricula of 18-24 months.

“In 2008, VinaGame will welcome the first batch of graduates from those training courses to work for us on a trial basis,” said Vu Anh, Human Resources Manager of VinaGame.

Other companies like Asiasoft in HCM City, the Corporation for Financing and Promoting Technology (FPT), the Vietnam Data-Communications Company (VDC) and the Vietnam Television Technology Investment and Development Company (VTC) are seeking human resources related to online games.

VinaGame’s Vu Anh said that her company currently had more than 700 official staffs and tens of freelancers and it needed hundreds of more workers.

In the Republic of Korea, the online game industry brings about US$2 billion of revenue each year, $10 billion from exports and uses around 50,000 labourers.