AI game startups in Vietnam and what an AI-native studio changes
Vietnam has a large game industry and a small number of AI game startups. Its studios already ship mobile games to the whole world, and Vietnam ranks second globally for mobile game downloads according to Sensor Tower. An AI-native studio in Ho Chi Minh City starts from that base and uses the same channels, but it changes what each player costs to serve. Reforged Labs, which generates video ads for mobile games, is one AI game startup based in Ho Chi Minh City.
How big Vietnam’s game industry is
The answer depends on what you count. Three recent figures measure three different things.
- Experts at Vietnam GameVerse 2026 put total industry revenue at about US$1.66 billion for 2025, with a forecast of US$2.42 billion by 2029.
- A Gamota report found that Vietnam’s mobile game market generated US$825 million in 2025 from about 54 million players. That is money spent by players in Vietnam, on games from anywhere.
- GameGeek reported that games published by Vietnamese studios earned about US$315 million in 2024 from 9.6 billion downloads. That is money Vietnamese studios earned, from players anywhere.
The last figure tells you the most about how local studios work. US$315 million over 9.6 billion downloads is about 3 US cents per download, by this article’s own arithmetic, though the two bases differ, because the revenue counts games Vietnamese studios published and the downloads count games they developed. GameGeek also estimates that in-app advertising is over 70 percent of revenue for local publishers. Vietnam’s studios grew by shipping many small, ad-funded mobile games.
The volume keeps rising. GameGeek’s 2025 report counts 27,388 new games launched by Vietnamese studios in 2025, up 13% from 2024. The same report notes that total downloads fell slightly, by 2% to 9% depending on whether you use AppsFlyer or Sensor Tower data.
The studios and hits people already know
The best-known Vietnamese game abroad is probably Flappy Bird. Dong Nguyen’s game was earning about US$50,000 a day from ads by his own account when he pulled it from both app stores in February 2014.
Other companies built businesses rather than single hits.
- Amanotes, the music game publisher behind Magic Tiles 3, has passed over 3 billion downloads, according to Google’s Android Developers Blog.
- Sky Mavis, the maker of Axie Infinity, raised US$152 million in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz in October 2021.
- VNG, the parent company of VNGGames, reported about VND 10,894 billion in 2025 net revenue, with about 22% from international markets. Gaming is its main source of revenue.
Below these names sit many smaller mobile publishers. Sensor Tower ranked Vietnam sixth in the world for growth in game publishers, at 27%. Their output leans casual. GameGeek found that simulation, puzzle, and arcade games made up 66% of downloads for Vietnamese-developed games.
Talent and cost
Vietnam’s cost advantage is real. ITviec’s IT Salary and Recruitment Market Report 2025-2026 gives a median of 33.35 million dong a month for game developers. At about 26,000 dong to the dollar, that is roughly US$1,300 a month. Treat that conversion as an estimate. The same report puts game developers with 5 to 8 years of experience at a median of 57.85 million dong a month.
The talent pool is deep in one kind of game. Many developers know how to ship a small mobile game, buy installs, and tune ad placements. Judging by the public hits, fewer have shipped a premium PC game or a long narrative game. A new studio that wants those skills often has to train people or hire from abroad.
How a Vietnamese studio reaches global players
A mobile studio in Vietnam can publish its own games on Google Play and the App Store and buy installs in the markets it targets. Many already do this at scale. GameGeek claims that Vietnamese studios account for 37.3% of global game app downloads.
PC is a smaller path, but it is open. Steam charges a US$100 Steam Direct fee for each new game, and Valve pays it back after the game reaches US$1,000 in adjusted gross revenue. Vietnamese studios already release there. Rare Reversee, a Vietnamese studio, sells The Scourge, a horror puzzle game set in 1990s Saigon, on Steam.
Selling at home is harder than selling abroad. Decree 147/2024 sets licensing rules for online games in Vietnam, and multiplayer games with a central server need a Decision to Publish before launch. A studio that aims at foreign players first can postpone that work. A studio that wants Vietnamese players needs to plan for it from the start.
A publisher still makes sense for a genre that needs a large marketing budget. For a small team with a small game, the stores are the shorter route.
Where developers meet in Vietnam
The busiest online room is the Game Developer Viet Nam (GDVN) Discord server, which listed about 4,700 members in October 2026. Discussion is in Vietnamese and covers programming, design, art, and publishing.
Two events bring the industry together in person.
- Vietnam GameVerse is a festival in Ho Chi Minh City. The 2025 edition included the Vietnam Game Awards, with 21 prizes, and the Vietnam Game Forum on policy, talent, and global promotion.
- Vietnam Game Connect is a B2B event in Hanoi run by GameGeek. The 2025 edition expected over 500 attendees and 25 international sponsors.
If you are starting a studio here, go to both. GameVerse puts you in front of players and the officials who set game policy. Vietnam Game Connect puts you in a room with other studios and the companies that sell services to them.
Are there AI game startups in Vietnam?
There are a few, and the best-funded public example sells tools to other studios. Reforged Labs, based in Ho Chi Minh City according to its ITviec company page, raised a US$3.9 million seed round led by DCM in 2024 to generate video ads for mobile games. That fits the local market well, because ads drive installs for almost every Vietnamese publisher.
Large studios use AI inside their own pipelines. Gamota says VNGGames built an internal art platform called Artian on Stable Diffusion, and that its own studio Gabros cut development time by 30% with AI prompting. That 30% is the company’s claim about itself, with no published method.
What this article could not find is a Vietnamese studio whose games depend on generative AI while the player plays. Search results for “AI-native game studio” are mostly funding news about small studios outside Vietnam. Vietnam has the developers and the global distribution. It does not yet have many public examples of AI at the core of the game itself.
What an AI-native studio changes
An AI-native game studio puts generative AI inside the game, so characters, dialogue, or content change for each player at runtime. That breaks the cost model most Vietnamese studios grew up with.
A hypercasual game costs almost nothing to serve once it is built. Each extra player is ad revenue with no extra content cost. An AI character costs money every time a player talks to it, because a model has to run. At about 3 US cents of revenue per download, an ad-funded game cannot pay for much inference. An AI-native studio in Vietnam will likely need premium prices, subscriptions, or small on-device models to pay for each player. The numbers are in the piece on AI NPC cost per player.
Some local strengths carry over. Low salaries still matter, because AI does not write a good character or design a good loop by itself. The global distribution habits carry over too.
The main risk is player trust. The GDC 2026 State of the Game Industry survey found that 52% of industry professionals said generative AI has a negative impact on the industry. Steam now asks developers to disclose AI use, and 19.5% of demos at the Steam Next Fest covered on June 17, 2026 carried that disclosure. A studio here has to show players what the AI adds to the game they play.
Rick Vu, who directs this site, builds Red Dog Studio in Ho Chi Minh City, a game studio building AI-native NPCs. This article uses only public sources and contains no inside data about it.
Related reading
- What is an AI-native game studio, for the definition this article assumes.
- AI NPC cost per player, for the inference math behind the cost argument above.
- Why game developers distrust generative AI, for the trust problem any AI-native studio has to solve.
Questions
How big is Vietnam's game industry?
Estimates depend on scope. Experts at Vietnam GameVerse 2026 put total 2025 industry revenue at about US$1.66 billion, while a Gamota report put Vietnam's mobile game market at US$825 million for 2025. Vietnam also ranks second in the world for mobile game downloads, according to Sensor Tower.
Are there AI game startups in Vietnam?
A few. The best-funded public example, Reforged Labs, builds tools for other studios, and raised a US$3.9 million seed round in Ho Chi Minh City for AI-generated game ads. Large publishers such as VNGGames use generative AI inside their own art pipelines. Studios whose games depend on AI at runtime are still rare.
Can a Vietnamese studio sell games globally?
Yes. Vietnamese studios publish directly on Google Play and the App Store, and a Steam release costs a US$100 fee per game. Hits such as Flappy Bird and Amanotes' Magic Tiles 3 reached players worldwide from Vietnam.
Where do game developers meet in Vietnam?
Online, the Game Developer Viet Nam (GDVN) Discord server has more than 4,600 members. In person, the main events are Vietnam GameVerse in Ho Chi Minh City and Vietnam Game Connect, a B2B industry event in Hanoi run by GameGeek.