The Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information (Ministry of Information and Communications) requires Netflix Company to stop advertising and publishing unlicensed games in the Vietnamese market before April 25, 2024.
Today (April 10), the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information sent an official dispatch to Netflix Company, requesting compliance with Vietnamese law when providing online video game services. .
Netflix is providing many unlicensed online video games in Vietnam. Screenshots
Through reviewing and checking online services, the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information discovered that Netflix Company was advertising online video games without permission on the Netflix application provided to Vietnamese users. , and at the same time providing many video games on App Store Vietnam and Google Play Store Vietnam without being licensed to operate in Vietnam. This is a violation of Article 31, Decree 72/2013/ND-CP of the Government regulating the management, provision and use of Internet services and online information.
The Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information requires Netflix Company to stop advertising and publishing video games on the Netflix application and application stores before April 25, 2024.
In case Netflix company does not comply with the above requirements, the Ministry of Information and Communications will coordinate with relevant state management agencies to handle it according to Vietnamese law.
In recent months, Netflix users in Vietnam were surprised when on this application, besides movies, there also appeared a series of mobile games including many different genres. Notably, the number of games is continuously increasing, from initially only 50, there are now up to 90 games on this platform.
Games are released by Netflix on its application and through Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store. To play these games, in addition to downloading directly from the app stores, users can also download the games right on the Netflix application.
The games Neflix offers include violent GTA games for ages 18+. Screenshots
After the game is downloaded and installed, to play the game the user will log in to the registered Netflix account.
According to research, these games have not been licensed in the Vietnamese market. In particular, among the list of games that this application provides, there are also 18+ violent games like GTA, or dating games for 16+ years old…
Discuss with PV VietNamNet, a representative of a domestic game publisher, said that Netflix releasing games without permission is unfair competition in the Vietnamese game market. These games are released without paying taxes, without having to bear opportunity costs in terms of censorship time, licensing, and user data storage. A simple example is that when publishing games in Vietnam, publishers always have to pay 10% VAT and corporate income tax, if any, this alone creates a great cost advantage for Netflix.
