Vinagame Case

INTRODUCTION

In the modernization period, more and more young people have access to the Internet. In statistic, number of people using Internet in 2005 of Vietnam is 9,6 million and predict that compound annual growth rate reach 14.9% at the end of 2009. Vietnam's population is about 85 million (Vietnam's population hit 85.8 million, 2009); currency is VND, the Vietnamese game market is worth 1,1 billion VND. Using online network rate is more than 16 million users that occupy around 20% national population.

Vietnam has young population and Internet development is in its first stage so that online game market in Vietnam is considered to have a huge potential. Last year, total turnover for the gaming market was US$80 million, and the figure is expected to reach $85 million by 2010. The industry has provided 3,700 jobs and contributed 287 billion VND ($16.4 million) to the State budget. At the same time, the Viet Nam Games Association forecasts that by 2010, the proportion of "leisure" internet users may increase 40 per cent, and games will take 80 per cent of the industry's income (New laws to rule on online games, 2009).

Vietnam online game market is growing dramatically. Beside the rapid development of information technology, people demand on entertainment and online game is also one of their options. Moreover, there are not many online game publishers in Vietnam currently, according to the statistic results there are just 2 online games publisher companies and VinaGame is the first opened company.

VinaGame is the first online game publisher, a software service company, providing many popular online games, offering unequaled hosting, software and professional customer services. All online games are well-known selected to aim to teen and adult gamers. For example, Justice Xwar Web used to attract more than 80% local gamer equivalent to the leading of producing game in China, Kingsoft. Until now, VinaGame owns more than fifteen games online, most popular is Justice Xwar Web. VinaGame also manages the only gaming prepaid card network linked to game rooms. Moreover, VinaGame provides the free Internet Café Management solution which is run at more than 15,000 game rooms in Vietnam and promises to increase more in the future.

VinaGame continue to grow with many new web services such as a news portal with latest information on many fields and entertainments aspects (Zing News), a biggest online music site (Zing Mp3), an online messenger with many advance features and friendly user interface (Zing Chat), a forum with many Vietnamese dynamic teen members (Zing Forum), etc... Base on the statistic Google done show that Zing.vn is the second most visited website in Vietnam, after Yahoo.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

VinaGame is the first online game publisher, a software service company, providing many popular online games, offering unequaled hosting, software and professional customer services. It currently staffed with over 1,000 employees, own three facilities in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh and Da Nang. It also cooperates with many Vietnam's leading gamers. Currently, VinaGame going to develop first Vietnamese game in Vietnam while Vietnam has joint to WTO so VinaGame will face many challenges in future. Possessing staff who are leading gamers in Vietnam as well as CEO team is include many people who are passionate gamers and have experience in game industry. To be the leading in game publisher and be more characteristic than other, VinaGame should apply knowledge management (KM) as the way to get the competitive advantage to compete with other companies. Though VinaGame is leading game organization in Vietnam but it lacks of community in organization, not strong in getting and analyzing information to predict or describe the problem so the KM solution that is suitable with VinaGame are data mining and brainstorming. Rely on size of VinaGame organization and its strategies as well as the environment, direction is necessary for this organization. Final part is estimating the budget for those KM solutions to support VinaGame in developing Vietnamese game.

CURRENT SITUATION

VinaGame currently staffed with over 1,000 employees, 50 among which are core members. Three facilities in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh and Da Nang owned by VinaGame, they also connect with four leadings Internet service provider in Vietnam to support gamer. VinaGame also cooperate with many Vietnam's leading gamers. Most of VinaGame employees are passionate gamers actually so that they will work with happy attitudes. Members of management team have many years experience on all of fields such as business finance, corporate finance, high-tech industry, technical design, network planning, technical operation, and marketing. For more information, the founder of VinaGame is the passionate gamer who used to be a captain of a clan in World Cyber Game (WCG) 2002 held in Korea. All the employees have good skills in gaming and information technology and because they are also the gamers so that they know what gamers need and what gamers face with. More than that, they are willing to work for their habits. The employees in VinaGame have general knowledge about game online but each of them has own specialize in 3D artist, game developer, game designer... It shows that each of employees in VinaGame, from management to employees, have tacit knowledge, they have many year experiences in online service area so that they can solve some problem without guide documents.

The strengths of VinaGame is 2D games made in China with Chinese background, exploring theme and culture are familiar with gamer, focusing on games that are suitable with configuration of Vietnamese PC. For those reasons, VinaGame has large number of gamer, from teenager to adult. While other organizations apply playing game free for gamer, VinaGame still remains its strategy, gamers have to pay for playing game; it shows that VinaGame can affirm that its games are worth.

Before an online game is released it has to be gone through all the testing such as closed beta version and open beta version. Limited number of gamers will do these testing. Usually VinaGame will create around 1000 testing accounts. Those accounts will be given the features, some special features might be disabled or enabled still depending on the current situation, but almost gamers can try all the necessary functions in the game. Then VinaGame collects feedback and all reported errors from gamers to fix bugs, to tweak and enhance. Those testing are taken in place in order to ensure the release version can run smoothly and reduced issues as much as possible.

As a special feature, VinaGame usually organizes the Special Games Event where all the gamers of the particular online games gather to discuss and join VinaGame