Building game industry with Vietnamese cultural identity

After a period of hot development, the Vietnamese gaming sector is gradually shifting towards products with spiritual value, aiming to better serve Vietnamese people’s demands for both entertainment and understanding of the national history and culture.

Potential niche market

According to Dang Bao Hue, Art Director at Lac Bird Group, culture is a major theme of the Vietnamese gaming industry, encompassing both material and spiritual life. Therefore, Lac Bird game products not only present architectural images that Vietnamese people are proud of, but also aim to explore spiritual and cultural life, bringing these experiences to young players in Viet Nam and around the world.

Choosing a start-up in the cultural gaming sector, some of the business’ products have initially attracted attention by exploring historical elements such as the game project “Phung Ma Luong Su”, which is set in the Ly Dynasty period with mythical historical elements and characters and events drawn from traditional Vietnamese folktales.

With 15 years of experience working in game development, Hoang Bao Long, CEO of Lac Bird Group, noted that after a period of “hot development,” Viet Nam’s gaming industry is increasingly integrating cultural values into its products. This trend is inspiring a young generation to devote more time and passion to game development, with their active participation.

Phan Thanh Duy, lecturer in Game Design at the Faculty of Communication and Design, RMIT Viet Nam, pointed out that culturally rich titles such as Black Myth: Wukong (China) and Assassin’s Creed: Shadows (France) gain competitive advantage through unique storytelling and effectively conveying cultural images globally.

Conversely, he said that Viet Nam has a rich and distinctive culture, but it has not been clearly recognised on the international gaming map like China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea. Integrating indigenous culture into video games not only helps to promote Viet Nam’s image but also differentiates its products in a market that is becoming saturated with generic content.

In recent years, many Vietnamese game developers have made notable efforts to integrate cultural and historical elements into their products. For instance, DreamChaser, an online game developed by young talents Tran Tuan Hiep (Pixel/2D Artist, born in 2001) and Pham Duy Phuc (Game Developer, born in 1999) features a poetic journey through Vietnamese culture with a unique gameplay style. The game impressed many international young players and was honoured by Apple in its “Here’s to the Dreamers” campaign for outstanding talent in Southeast Asia.

Currently, experts believe that game market has many advantages for cultural game development. Phan Thanh Duy analysed that young users today seek not only entertainment but also opportunities to learn about the national history and culture. For example, on social networks, there are communities of young people passionate about history and cultures. Such trends present an opportunity to build a niche market for cultural and educational games.

From the perspective of policy mechanisms, Directive No. 30/CT-TTg includes content aimed at promoting the use of digital platforms to create cultural industry products. The Ministry of Information and Communications, in coordination with relevant ministries, agencies, and localities, is taking an active role in reviewing and proposing mechanisms and policies to support the development of software and online games in cyberspace (in the field of entertainment games) that are imbued with Vietnamese identity and in line with the development trends of the world.

Ongoing Challenges

According to game developers, despite their great potential, cultural games require significantly greater investment than traditional ones, because they not only need production teams but also cultural experts.

Trinh Xuan Hai, External Affairs Director at Gamegeek — a company that supports community-based game development — explained that incorporating cultural and historical elements needs in-depth research and investment. To be successful, a game must gain a large number of players, therefore, it must first have attractive "game play" before integrating historical and cultural elements. Apart from usual development teams, it also needs experts in history and culture.

“The resources required to develop a cultural game may be twice those of a traditional one. Meanwhile, the market does not always readily support such products. This poses a significant challenge for Vietnamese game studios,” Hai noted.

According to Phan Thanh Duy, culture in games is not just national symbols or familiar settings. It must be subtly embedded through everyday behaviours and habits, such as how characters tidy their homes, shop at the market, or bargain. “These distinctly Vietnamese details” can become unique gameplay mechanisms if developed properly. However, a prerequisite for this is a deep understanding of the target market.

In 2024, Vietnamese game products attracted 5.7 billion downloads from overseas. Revenue from international users for Vietnamese game developers exceeded 2,000 billion VND. This presents a major opportunity to promote Vietnamese culture. With 4,000 years of history and thousands of legends and tales, it is a huge cultural treasure that game developers need to exploit better. If done effectively, the world will know about the good culture and history of the Vietnamese people. Moreover, this could serve as a “digital bridge” for future generations to understand and preserve traditional values.

Over the past five years, the development of cultural game products has begun to receive attention. As of the end of 2024, the revenue of the domestic game industry has reached 13,663 billion VND (about 525 million USD), ranking fifth globally, with a growth rate 2.5 times higher than the world and an increase of 8.8% compared to 2023.

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