Following the previous article on general notes in the online gaming service business under Decree No. 147/2024/ND-CP (“Decree No. 147”), BLawyers Vietnam introduces three important notes regarding the business of G1 online games (“G1 Games”) under Decree No. 147. This article compares the notable changes of Decree 147 with Decree No. 72/2013/ND-CP (“Decree No. 72”) to clarify the impact of the new regulations.
1. General conditions for enterprises providing G1 Games services online
According to Decree 147, enterprises intending to provide G1 Games services online must meet the following two conditions:
- Have a License to provide G1 Games online services (“G1 Games License”); and
- Obtain a Decision on release of G1 Games online issued by the Ministry of Information and Communication (“Releasing Decision”).
The difference between Decree 72 and Decree 147 lies in one of the general conditions for providing G1 Games services. Decree 72 required enterprises to obtain the Ministry of Information and Communication’s approval for G1 Games through a Decision approving the content and script of each G1 Games. Meanwhile, Decree 147 stipulates that enterprises providing G1 Games services must obtain a Decision on release G1 Games online issued by the Ministry of Information and Communications.
2. G1 Game License
2.1. Condition for Obtaining a G1 Games License
Compared with the regulations on conditions for granting a License to provide G1 Games services of Decree No. 72, the regulations on conditions for granting G1 Game Licenses of Decree No. 147 have been supplemented and adjusted as follows:
- Enterprises must be established in accordance with Vietnamese law, have registered the business of providing online game services, and have a clear and accessible head office address and contact phone number;
- Decree No. 147 adds the requirement for a technical equipment system to ensure the storage and full updated player information in Vietnam, including: full name, date of birth, and mobile phone number in Vietnam;
- In addition, enterprises must authenticate player accounts using mobile phone numbers in Vietnam. If the player is under 16 years old, the parent or legal guardian must register the account using the information of the parent or legal guardian and is responsible for monitoring and managing the playing time and game content of the player under 16 years old. Meanwhile, the enterprise must delete the player’s information after the storage period expires according to regulations;
- Regarding the requirement on player time management according to Decree No. 147, enterprises must ensure that they have a technical equipment system to ensure the management of the playing time per day (from 00:00 to 24:00) of players under 18 years old not exceeding 60 minutes for each game and not exceeding 180 minutes a day for all games for players under 18 years old provided by the enterprise;
- Displaying a warning with the content “Playing more than 180 minutes a day will have a negative impact on health” in a recognizable location on the game forum (if any) and on the player’s device screen at a frequency of 30 minutes/time during game play;
- Having a technical system managing in-game communication and information sharing, as well as on the game’s forum (if any);
- Implementing measures to manage content and player account information, ensuring accurate, complete, and updated storage of player activity information during service usage;
- Having schemes to ensure cyber information safety, information security, service quality, and legitimate rights and benefits of players; and
- Having backup schemes for equipment and connection and schemes for data backup to ensure system safety upon incidents.
2.2. Notes on G1 Game License application dossier
One of the important documents that G1 Game enterprise must pay attention to when carrying out the registration procedure for a G1 Game License is the G1 Game service provision plan. The plan includes the following main contents:
- Service provision plan, financial capacity, organization, personnel, and technical implementation of service provision to ensure that the conditions for granting a G1 Game License are met;
- Overall diagram of the service provision equipment system, location of the service provision equipment system;
- Information on the service provision equipment system including the main part and the backup part to ensure service quality, network information security, information security; data backup plan and backup plan; plan to ensure the rights of players and player information data;
- Detailed information on the method and scope of service provision (domain name, game distribution channel, IP address); enterprises connecting to the Internet and telecommunications networks (enterprise name, address, connection channel capacity); and
- Compared to Decree No. 72, Decree No. 147 only requires enterprises to provide information on the planned connection with organizations providing payment services, providing intermediary payment services instead of describing in detail the game’s payment system.
3. Conditions for obtaining a Release Decision
An Enterprise will be granted a Release Decision if it meets the following conditions:
- The enterprise holds a valid G1 Games License with at least six months of validity remaining – 06 months less than the regulations of Decree No. 72;
- The game content and script do not violate the regulations under the Law on Cybersecurity 2018 and intellectual property regulations;
- The game must not simulate casino gambling games, use playing card images, and contain image, sounds, or language that describe acts of violence, terrorism, pornography, violations of ethics, culture, history, sovereignty, and other illegal acts; and
- The online game must have an age classification appropriate to its content and script, in compliance with age-rating regulations for online game players.
One of the biggest changes of Decree 147 is the official ban on the issuance of G1 Games for entertainment card games in Vietnam. Therefore, the enterprises providing G1 Games services need to take note of the above changes, ensuring compliance with the regulations of the law on G1 Games in Decree 147.
The above is not official advice from BLawyers Vietnam. If you have any questions or suggestions about the above, please contact us at info@blawyersvn.com. BLawyers Vietnam would love to hear from you.
Date: 18 March 2025
Writers: Thai Bui & Thanh Huynh
