Today felt much more relaxed compared to the previous day since we had only one company visit. We started the day with a Vietnamese history class again. It is very interesting to keep learning more and more about this culture. It is making a lot of our experiences and what we’ve noticed about Vietnam make much more sense. I think the biggest thing I got out of this lecture in particular was how the Vietnamese feel about Americans. As many people know, during the war Agent Orange was spread in order to reduce foliage that the Viet Cong were hiding in. An unfortunate side effect of this was ill health in people and birth defects for infants. The professor giving us this lecture has a relative who was affected by Agent Orange. One of us asked him if he had any negative feelings towards Americans because of this and he said, “No, we do not. There are a lot of American organizations that come to help those affected by Agent Orange and besides that, Vietnam has a long history of wars. We fought the Chinese, Cambodia, France, United States, etc. If we hated all of these people we could not live. You may think I am just saying this, but I think if you ask most people they will say the same thing.” I personally found this to be very big of them. This is just another example of the ill-effects of war but how each side can come together for a brighter future (as often happens).
Today’s company visit was to Glass Egg Digital Media. This was by far one of the coolest company visits. We were able to walk around and see artists working on cars and characters from video game franchises we are all familiar with. What I found especially cool was that they made a lot of the cars in the Gran Turismo series, meaning I have probably driven a few cars made by Glass Egg in that video game! It was also interesting to hear about the business plan for this company and how their process works. They receive a contract from a company such as Microsoft or EA Games to make cars or something in a game. Then they receive specifications and pictures and then go to work designing the graphics. First a wire mesh of the shape is made and then more and more detail is added on as necessary and/or is able to be supported by the gaming device. What really helped me too was hearing the story of how the company started. Before the trip we read a case study intended for MBA students about Glass Egg and in that it wasn’t very clear how the company started and I was left thinking, “How did someone with a law degree think of starting a video game outsourcing company?” Well as it turns out, Phil Tran was a law intern here in Vietnam working on a case where a company wanted to outsource to Vietnam and could not find anyone to outsource to, so he suggested they start their own studio. After said company failed he and Steve Reid got together and the rest is history. Here is the logo for Glass Egg as well as some of the games they have worked on:
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