Gaming has gained worldwide appeal, and is starting to make its mark on Vietnam and India as it continues to expand.
As Vietnam and India experience economic growth, their technology and gaming industries have begun to expand, according to a study released by Pearl Research in San Jose. Pearl forecast that by 2014, Vietnam and India will have 25 million active gamers. The US, with it’s established gaming tradition that spans several decades, has over 174 million gamers. While the numbers are nowhere near that of an established gaming community, in both countries local gaming development is also on the rise; Vietnam currently has about 50 actively played MMOGs (both foreign and homegrown) with over 200,000 users for some of the more popular games. India’s established IT infrastructure is also helping games gain prominence in their economy.
This is in no small part due to the burgeoning internet in both economies. Vietnam has about 22 million active internet users while India has 44 million active users, as well as 180,000 internet cafes within the country. Pearl notes “Both markets are driven by rising incomes, increasing PC and Internet penetration rates, and a large population of youth that are actively seeking out entertainment content.”
While it’s true India and Vietnam are still developing their gamer culture, this is good news for the rest of us. As gaming penetrates the global market more, it means more games made by more studios, which gives us gamers many more creative and interesting games to play. Good job, Vietnam and India, here’s hoping we’ll see more of this in the next few years.
Source: Gamasutra
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Published: Mar 5, 2010 08:20 pm