VinaGame
Encyclopedia
VNG Corporation was established in Vietnam
in 2004 under the name Vinagame. It is an internet company whose main businesses are game publisher
, e-commerce, and social networking sites (SNS
).VNG was the first to launch a licensed online game
in Vietnam
.
In 2008, VNG released Zing.com, a diverse entertainment portal which provides access to news and music, social networking services, a platform for gaming, instant messaging, and online payment.Its self-built distribution network, the Cyber Station Manager (CSM), VNG has reached most of Vietnam
’s Internet cafes. VNG also developed Vietnam's first locally made online game, Thuan Thien Kiem, in 2010.
In January 2010, Vinagame officially changed its name to VNG Corporation in order to reflect the broader goals of the company and in May, a new corporate logo was released. By its own estimates, VNG holds 60% of market share of the Vietnamese online gaming market with 7.5 million gamers and 12.5 million general users. It has roughly 1250 employed staff and is headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam with offices in Hanoi and Danang.
In November of 2004, VNG's founders signed the exclusive license deal with Kingsoft
for Swordsman Online(or Vo Lam Truyen Ky), known as the successful JX Online franchise in China
. The game exceeded everyone’s expectations, reaching 20,000 peak concurrent users (PCU) after only one month of operation. Since then, VNG has licensed and operated games, mostly from Chinese and Korean developers, in Vietnam.
In its early days VNG faced the risk of closure from the Department of Information and Communications of Vietnam because there were no regulations on online gaming in the country. However, the company endured and in 2005, VNG received a significant investment from IDG Ventures
. It was the largest investment IDG Ventures had made in Vietnam at the time.
In 2006, VNG closed the year with 17 million USD in revenue, six times higher than the previous year.
In 2007 and 2008, ZingMe, Zingchat, ZingNews, and ZingPlay are released. Zing.vn becomes the number one website in Vietnam, topping the Alexa chart in terms of traffic. By 2009, ZingMe is Vietnam's largest SNS
website with over 5 million users.
In May of 2010, VNG releases Thuan Thien Kiem, Vietnam's first locally developed MMORPG
(Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). Although the game did not perform up to expectations, it marked an important transformation of VNG from a game operator into a game developer.
Vo Lam Truyen Ky (Swordsman Online) is the first and most successful MMORPG game in Vietnam. Developed by KingSoft
(China), the game focuses on martial arts and old Chinese culture. This MMORPG
is at times considered part of Vietnamese teenager’s pop culture. Swordman Online has been voted "Most favorite game of the year" three years in a row. In addition to the Pay-to-Play version, VNG also publishes a free version and Vo Lam Truyen Ky 2, a sequel. The Vo Lam series is still one of the most popular MMORPGs in Vietnam.
On February 9, 2007, a film named Vo Lam Truyen Ky was released. The film mirrored huge effects of Swordsman Online on Vietnamese youngsters. It attracted the attention of most gamers possibly because it starred famous Vietnamese singer Dan Truong and some other well-known native entertainers, such as comedian Hoai Linh.
Boom Online was published in Vietnam in April, 2007, and quickly became the most popular casual game of the time with over 60,000 PCU. The game is modeled off the classic Bomberman
series. Based on a 2D gaming environment and packed with a myriad of lively animated illustrations, Boom Online is popular amongst players of all ages.
Gunny is a turn-based casual game involving exciting gun battles akin to Gunbound
with many features similar to the popular Worms games series. It is a browser-based game and can be played directly on the web without installing any software. Since its launch, Gunny has steadily attracted a group of royal gamers. Gunny is now one of the top 10 casual games in Vietnam.
Thuan Thien Kiem is the first MMORPG developed by a Vietnamese game studio. Set in the Ly dynasty of VIetnam, Thuan Thien Kiem contains only Vietnamese cultural features, from graphics to in-game dialogues and game play features. Nicknamed “project T812”, Thuan Thien Kiem had been in incubation from August 2006. After over three years of development, Thuan Thien Kiem made its debut in March 2010.
In May 2010, VNG launched Perfect World
’s 2.5D MMORPG
"Battle of the Immortals" in Vietnam. The game runs on Perfect World's proprietary "Cube" engine and blends content from Eastern and Western cultures. So far, the game has attracted over 40,000 PCU in Vietnam, becoming one of the top 5 games in the market. However, growth has since slowed down due to gamer complaints about bugs and other errors.
World of Fighter is a side-scrolling online game based on the history of the Three Kingdoms in China, where players can experience a series of historical battles with a number of famous ancient Chinese figures. The game applies real-time combat mode functionality with a rich set of skills and strict real-time combat operations. World of Fighters has not fared well and is ranked only among the top 15 most popular games in Vietnam.
Zing Play, a collection of 21 mini and flash games, was developed by a team of game developers at VNG. Games on Zing Play includes traditional card and board games, poker, tetris, and other mini games. On average, VNG releases 1 new game every month. Zing Play currently has over 30,000 PCU and 1 million active users.
Zing is a system of Internet-based coordinated services aimed at providing Vietnamese online market with social communications means by which healthy lifestyles are nurtured, social awareness fostered, and digital entertainment offered. Zing Portal includes ZingMe, ZingMP3, ZingNews, and ZingChat.
ZingMP3 has an archive of over 1 million songs which users can listen, download, and embed to blogs free of charge and share with friends. ZingChat is modeled off popular Chinese instant messaging service, QQ. The Zing entertainment portal is the largest and most popular entertainment portal in Vietnam with over 4 million monthly active users.
Zing is a partnership of VeGa in the scope of information and content management.
123mua is one of the first and largest e-commerce websites in Vietnam. It provides an enormous and ever expanding range of shopping items, ranging from electronics to stationery.
Zing Pay is an e-wallet system developed and operated by VNG. In addition to supporting millions of users in paying for VNG’s services, Zing Pay is also open for payment services to third parties. The common currency being used is XU, which users can charge to their VNG account via paper card, SMS messages, or by buying directly online. On a monthly basis, Zing Pay processes nearly six million transactions.
next to the BigC supermarket. The Customer Service center is on the 1st floor, management on the2nd floor, game development studios on 3rd floor, and the 4th floor includes a canteen and gym. The company has also erected offices in some other big cities and regional provinces in Vietnam
including Hanoi
and Danang.
VinaGame has been operating its games on bandwidth
capacity of 16 Gbit/s. It does not seem to be an easy task to handle as VinaGame’s registered user accounts have been multiplying at a speed beyond any expectation. That is why VinaGame made a decision to form partnership
at the same time with 4 leading ISP
s in Vietnam in order to provide sufficient and qualified connectivity for gamers.
The company also built and operates an advanced data center
, plus two principal 24/7 customer service
centers in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. These facilities are to cater the demands of more than 15,000 peering Internet cafes nationwide which help distribute VNG's prepaid game cards.
VNG's Game Studio North in Hanoi has been running a Fresher program for over 2 years. Around 300 applicants are selected from Universities around Vietnam to interview for an internship position at Vinagame. Roughly 10-15 students get chosen every year and more than half of them stay on to work full-time.
First-Person Shooter
(FPS) game Sudden Attack
was forcibly closed in October of 2010 due to excessive violence.
In a case regarding intellectual property violation, during an unscheduled inspection of VNG, 10 of 350 machines were found to be using pirated software including products from Microsoft
. Le Thi Hong Diep, Deputy Director General, signed documents admitting the intellectual property
violations.
, Adobe
, and Lạc Việt Dictionary. Le Thi Hong Diep, Deputy Director General, signed documents admitting the intellectual property
violations. The estimated amount of violation is up to five billion Vietnamese đồng (5.000.000.000 VND).
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
in 2004 under the name Vinagame. It is an internet company whose main businesses are game publisher
Video game publisher
A video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that they have either developed internally or have had developed by a video game developer....
, e-commerce, and social networking sites (SNS
SNS
-Commerce:* SNS Bank, a Dutch bank.* Steak n Shake, a U.S. restaurant chain* Street News Service, a news agency for street newspapers-Computing:* Amazon Simple Notification Service , a multiprotocol "push" messaging web service...
).VNG was the first to launch a licensed online game
Online game
An online game is a game played over some form of computer network. This almost always means the Internet or equivalent technology, but games have always used whatever technology was current: modems before the Internet, and hard wired terminals before modems...
in Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
.
In 2008, VNG released Zing.com, a diverse entertainment portal which provides access to news and music, social networking services, a platform for gaming, instant messaging, and online payment.Its self-built distribution network, the Cyber Station Manager (CSM), VNG has reached most of Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
’s Internet cafes. VNG also developed Vietnam's first locally made online game, Thuan Thien Kiem, in 2010.
In January 2010, Vinagame officially changed its name to VNG Corporation in order to reflect the broader goals of the company and in May, a new corporate logo was released. By its own estimates, VNG holds 60% of market share of the Vietnamese online gaming market with 7.5 million gamers and 12.5 million general users. It has roughly 1250 employed staff and is headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam with offices in Hanoi and Danang.
History
VNG was founded by five avid gamers including CEO Le Hong Minh, and American entrepreneur Bryan Pelz.In November of 2004, VNG's founders signed the exclusive license deal with Kingsoft
Kingsoft
Kingsoft is a software company located in China. Its products include Kingsoft Office, PowerWord, Kingsoft Internet Security, Kingsoft free antivirus and the Kingsoft FastAIT Chinese-English-Japanese translation software....
for Swordsman Online(or Vo Lam Truyen Ky), known as the successful JX Online franchise in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. The game exceeded everyone’s expectations, reaching 20,000 peak concurrent users (PCU) after only one month of operation. Since then, VNG has licensed and operated games, mostly from Chinese and Korean developers, in Vietnam.
In its early days VNG faced the risk of closure from the Department of Information and Communications of Vietnam because there were no regulations on online gaming in the country. However, the company endured and in 2005, VNG received a significant investment from IDG Ventures
IDG Ventures
IDG Ventures is a global family of venture funds with approximately $6.8 billion under management. All of the funds were originally sole-source-funded by International Data Group.The first fund was created by IDG in 1996 and was located in San Francisco...
. It was the largest investment IDG Ventures had made in Vietnam at the time.
In 2006, VNG closed the year with 17 million USD in revenue, six times higher than the previous year.
In 2007 and 2008, ZingMe, Zingchat, ZingNews, and ZingPlay are released. Zing.vn becomes the number one website in Vietnam, topping the Alexa chart in terms of traffic. By 2009, ZingMe is Vietnam's largest SNS
SNS
-Commerce:* SNS Bank, a Dutch bank.* Steak n Shake, a U.S. restaurant chain* Street News Service, a news agency for street newspapers-Computing:* Amazon Simple Notification Service , a multiprotocol "push" messaging web service...
website with over 5 million users.
In May of 2010, VNG releases Thuan Thien Kiem, Vietnam's first locally developed MMORPG
MMORPG
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....
(Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). Although the game did not perform up to expectations, it marked an important transformation of VNG from a game operator into a game developer.
VNG Games
- Swordsman Online Series
Vo Lam Truyen Ky (Swordsman Online) is the first and most successful MMORPG game in Vietnam. Developed by KingSoft
Kingsoft
Kingsoft is a software company located in China. Its products include Kingsoft Office, PowerWord, Kingsoft Internet Security, Kingsoft free antivirus and the Kingsoft FastAIT Chinese-English-Japanese translation software....
(China), the game focuses on martial arts and old Chinese culture. This MMORPG
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....
is at times considered part of Vietnamese teenager’s pop culture. Swordman Online has been voted "Most favorite game of the year" three years in a row. In addition to the Pay-to-Play version, VNG also publishes a free version and Vo Lam Truyen Ky 2, a sequel. The Vo Lam series is still one of the most popular MMORPGs in Vietnam.
On February 9, 2007, a film named Vo Lam Truyen Ky was released. The film mirrored huge effects of Swordsman Online on Vietnamese youngsters. It attracted the attention of most gamers possibly because it starred famous Vietnamese singer Dan Truong and some other well-known native entertainers, such as comedian Hoai Linh.
- Boom Online
Boom Online was published in Vietnam in April, 2007, and quickly became the most popular casual game of the time with over 60,000 PCU. The game is modeled off the classic Bomberman
Bomberman
Bomberman is a strategic, maze-based computer and video game franchise originally developed by Hudson Soft. The original game was published in 1983 and new games in the series are still being published to this day. Today, the commercially successful Bomberman is featured in over 70 different games...
series. Based on a 2D gaming environment and packed with a myriad of lively animated illustrations, Boom Online is popular amongst players of all ages.
- Gunny
Gunny is a turn-based casual game involving exciting gun battles akin to Gunbound
GunBound
GunBound is a free-to-play, turn-based, room-to-room, multiplayer online game with many similar features to the popular Worms game series....
with many features similar to the popular Worms games series. It is a browser-based game and can be played directly on the web without installing any software. Since its launch, Gunny has steadily attracted a group of royal gamers. Gunny is now one of the top 10 casual games in Vietnam.
- Thuan Thien Kiem
Thuan Thien Kiem is the first MMORPG developed by a Vietnamese game studio. Set in the Ly dynasty of VIetnam, Thuan Thien Kiem contains only Vietnamese cultural features, from graphics to in-game dialogues and game play features. Nicknamed “project T812”, Thuan Thien Kiem had been in incubation from August 2006. After over three years of development, Thuan Thien Kiem made its debut in March 2010.
- Battle of the Immortals
In May 2010, VNG launched Perfect World
Perfect World
Perfect World , is a 3D adventure and fantasy MMORPG with traditional Chinese settings. Players can take on various roles depending on choice of race and choice of class within that race....
’s 2.5D MMORPG
MMORPG
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....
"Battle of the Immortals" in Vietnam. The game runs on Perfect World's proprietary "Cube" engine and blends content from Eastern and Western cultures. So far, the game has attracted over 40,000 PCU in Vietnam, becoming one of the top 5 games in the market. However, growth has since slowed down due to gamer complaints about bugs and other errors.
- World of Fighters
World of Fighter is a side-scrolling online game based on the history of the Three Kingdoms in China, where players can experience a series of historical battles with a number of famous ancient Chinese figures. The game applies real-time combat mode functionality with a rich set of skills and strict real-time combat operations. World of Fighters has not fared well and is ranked only among the top 15 most popular games in Vietnam.
- Zing Play
Zing Play, a collection of 21 mini and flash games, was developed by a team of game developers at VNG. Games on Zing Play includes traditional card and board games, poker, tetris, and other mini games. On average, VNG releases 1 new game every month. Zing Play currently has over 30,000 PCU and 1 million active users.
VinaGame’s Other Products
- Zing Entertainment Portal
Zing is a system of Internet-based coordinated services aimed at providing Vietnamese online market with social communications means by which healthy lifestyles are nurtured, social awareness fostered, and digital entertainment offered. Zing Portal includes ZingMe, ZingMP3, ZingNews, and ZingChat.
ZingMP3 has an archive of over 1 million songs which users can listen, download, and embed to blogs free of charge and share with friends. ZingChat is modeled off popular Chinese instant messaging service, QQ. The Zing entertainment portal is the largest and most popular entertainment portal in Vietnam with over 4 million monthly active users.
Zing is a partnership of VeGa in the scope of information and content management.
- 123Mua
123mua is one of the first and largest e-commerce websites in Vietnam. It provides an enormous and ever expanding range of shopping items, ranging from electronics to stationery.
- Zing Pay
Zing Pay is an e-wallet system developed and operated by VNG. In addition to supporting millions of users in paying for VNG’s services, Zing Pay is also open for payment services to third parties. The common currency being used is XU, which users can charge to their VNG account via paper card, SMS messages, or by buying directly online. On a monthly basis, Zing Pay processes nearly six million transactions.
Headquarters and facilities
VNG is headquartered on 268 To Hien Thanh st, District 10, Ho Chi Minh CityHo Chi Minh City
Ho Chi Minh City , formerly named Saigon is the largest city in Vietnam...
next to the BigC supermarket. The Customer Service center is on the 1st floor, management on the2nd floor, game development studios on 3rd floor, and the 4th floor includes a canteen and gym. The company has also erected offices in some other big cities and regional provinces in Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
including Hanoi
Hanoi
Hanoi , is the capital of Vietnam and the country's second largest city. Its population in 2009 was estimated at 2.6 million for urban districts, 6.5 million for the metropolitan jurisdiction. From 1010 until 1802, it was the most important political centre of Vietnam...
and Danang.
VinaGame has been operating its games on bandwidth
Bandwidth (computing)
In computer networking and computer science, bandwidth, network bandwidth, data bandwidth, or digital bandwidth is a measure of available or consumed data communication resources expressed in bits/second or multiples of it .Note that in textbooks on wireless communications, modem data transmission,...
capacity of 16 Gbit/s. It does not seem to be an easy task to handle as VinaGame’s registered user accounts have been multiplying at a speed beyond any expectation. That is why VinaGame made a decision to form partnership
Partnership
A partnership is an arrangement where parties agree to cooperate to advance their mutual interests.Since humans are social beings, partnerships between individuals, businesses, interest-based organizations, schools, governments, and varied combinations thereof, have always been and remain commonplace...
at the same time with 4 leading ISP
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
s in Vietnam in order to provide sufficient and qualified connectivity for gamers.
The company also built and operates an advanced data center
Data center
A data center is a facility used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems...
, plus two principal 24/7 customer service
Customer service
Customer service is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.According to Turban et al. , “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer...
centers in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. These facilities are to cater the demands of more than 15,000 peering Internet cafes nationwide which help distribute VNG's prepaid game cards.
Organizational Culture and Human Resources
VNG is currently staffed with about 1250 employees, and its offices are open-air. VNG was voted as one of Vietnam's '50 Best Employers' as a result of its outstanding Human Resources Management in a survey carried out jointly by AC Nielson, Navigos Group, and Thanh Nhien newspaper in June 2007.VNG's Game Studio North in Hanoi has been running a Fresher program for over 2 years. Around 300 applicants are selected from Universities around Vietnam to interview for an internship position at Vinagame. Roughly 10-15 students get chosen every year and more than half of them stay on to work full-time.
Legal and Social Challenges
VNG and the Online Game industry in general has become a subject of scrutiny again because government officials, including the HCMC Department of Information and Communications and the media, claim that Online Game is the source of social problems, especially amongst the youth. At the moment, VNG and all other online game publishers are awaiting the new regulations on Online Gaming which are expected to be released in Q1 of 2011.First-Person Shooter
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
(FPS) game Sudden Attack
Sudden Attack
Sudden Attack is a free-to-play multiplayer first-person shooter online game developed by the South Korean company, GameHi and moved to Nexon.-Gameplay:...
was forcibly closed in October of 2010 due to excessive violence.
In a case regarding intellectual property violation, during an unscheduled inspection of VNG, 10 of 350 machines were found to be using pirated software including products from Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
. Le Thi Hong Diep, Deputy Director General, signed documents admitting the intellectual property
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
violations.
Intellectual Property Violation
During an unscheduled inspection of Vinagame 156 of 350 machines were found to be using pirated software including products from MicrosoftMicrosoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, Adobe
Adobe
Adobe is a natural building material made from sand, clay, water, and some kind of fibrous or organic material , which the builders shape into bricks using frames and dry in the sun. Adobe buildings are similar to cob and mudbrick buildings. Adobe structures are extremely durable, and account for...
, and Lạc Việt Dictionary. Le Thi Hong Diep, Deputy Director General, signed documents admitting the intellectual property
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
violations. The estimated amount of violation is up to five billion Vietnamese đồng (5.000.000.000 VND).
External links
- VinaGame receives funding from IDG Ventures and launches Swordsman online (March 29, 2007) Retrieved September 3, 2007
- Online video game company sparking Vietnam's Web era(January 25, 2007) Retrieved September 4, 2007
- Online gaming to get a boost from HP (May 17, 2007) Retrieved September 3, 2007
- Online news (Sep 01, 2011) Retrieved September 20, 2011