As gaming becomes a lucrative business sector, suppliers are boldly investing in purchasing licenses for popular online games. After a period of relative quiet, this market has burst back into activity with a series of events and promotions aimed at attracting gamers.
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The Glorious Career Program – Heroes Fulfill Their Aspirations. |
Events tied to annual holidays such as New Year’s, Tet, Valentine’s Day, International Women’s Day, National Day, Vietnamese Teachers’ Day, Mid-Autumn Festival, Christmas, or weekend events are fully exploited by online game publishers as a means to satisfy customers, retain gamers, and attract new players. Participants in these programs can receive in-game items, additional playtime for account recharge cards, and increased experience points (XP)…
For gamer couples, the focus of attention is on special events designed for lovers or opportunities for male gamers to express their feelings, such as “Love Chocolate,” “Sweet Love Candy” from PTV, “Valentine’s Festival” – “Double Happiness for Lovers” from Võ Lâm Truyền Kỳ (VLTK), “Love Week” from TS Online, and “Sweet Valentine” and “International Women’s Day 8-3” from GunBound…
However, as gamer Master_VNVN noted, “Among all events, the castle siege in games like PTV, VLTK, MU… is the most anticipated, the largest, the most famous, and yields the most rewards. As soon as the announcement is made, players must work hard from preparing items, leveling up, recruiting talent, forming teams, to planning the siege… Everyone is very excited and curious about the scenery and results of the siege.“
Since online gaming officially commercialized, players have been required to pay by purchasing recharge cards for their accounts, making promotional scratch cards or lucky draw opportunities on the publisher’s website highly popular. VinaGame has widely announced a special promotion for VLTK gamers with a total value of over half a billion VND. Additionally, PTV – Reclaiming the Promised Land has launched a program titled “1 Billion VND Promotion During PTV Shopping Month“.
Mrs. Nguyễn Thị Kim Thoa, Head of External Relations at VinaGame, stated: “We have noticed that players prefer experience point-boosting promotions. However, how to organize these programs and the amount of points to increase is something the company carefully considers based on feedback from a large number of gamers while ensuring attractiveness and fairness.“
Meanwhile, Mr. Phạm Như Đức, Head of Marketing at Asiasoft, commented: “This form of entertainment will be most appealing when organized as competitions, such as the World Cyber Games, because gamers desire to interact and meet offline with the gaming community.“
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1 Billion VND Promotion During PTV Shopping Month. |
In reality, when “Explosion Event Week” for PTV warriors begins, the Bless City of all four servers becomes desolate as players concentrate on battling monsters. The appeal of this event is that on the first day, gamers’ experience points will double; the next day, they will triple; the following day they will quadruple, leading up to the Ultimate Resource event; on the fourth day, there will be an additional event, Summoning Beast Kings; and on the final day, there will be many other events, with experience points multiplied by five.
“The experience point boost is highly attractive because it allows for quick leveling up, acquiring many items, and players are also very pleased when they earn a lot of in-game currency from selling items. For new players, receiving additional days or hours of play is the most practical, while ‘veterans’ can earn a significant amount of currency during each castle siege to exchange for play days, thus making gems more valuable.” said Nguyễn An Bình, a fan of many online games. “However, the experience point increase leads to a surge in player competition over spots (KS), and foul language will occur more frequently. It can also be said that this is somewhat unfair as only those who are free during the promotion benefit.“
In response to concerns that excessive use of playtime could lead to negative outcomes, and that enhancing promotional programs to attract players and increase playtime may lead to addiction, Mr. Phạm Thành Đức, Director of FPT Online Gaming Center, explained: “Promotions are designed to create novelty and retain old customers rather than attract new ones. Forms such as increasing XP, gifting items, and prize draws are meant to make it easier for players and enhance their satisfaction with the provider. In reality, having many players does not necessarily determine the success of an online game, and the number of gamers who play excessively is insignificant.“
Mr. Đức further emphasized: “Anything used excessively is not good; for example, Vitamin C is beneficial for health, but if you take 3-4 pills a day, is it still good? Promotions only help players enjoy their leisure time, not encourage them to play more.“
As more games become available for players to choose from, competition among businesses becomes inevitable. Mr. Phạm Thành Đức noted: “Like other business sectors, online gaming also requires marketing, and these promotional programs or events are significant, establishing a professional image for game publishers. However, the company’s policy is always to refresh content, ensure technical operation, and enhance utilities such as buying and trading assets, and updating new goods.“
Any business aims to attract customers, sell more products and services, and increase revenue and profit. However, the online entertainment industry faces numerous challenges as it is a “sensitive” issue. Mrs. Thoa expressed: “The major challenge businesses must overcome is changing public perception and convincing them that the online entertainment industry contributes to infrastructure development and is a healthy and beneficial form of entertainment for society.“
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