Today, after another morning of lectures and intense Vietnamese language learning, we went out to another delicious lunch. This time, we went to what seemed to be a fast food pho restaurant. One interesting that I’ve noticed about the restaurants in Ho Chi Minh city is that they are almost all multiple stories tall. Last night for dinner we climbed to the third floor, which made it seem like a much more private area and probably gave the other guests some protection from the noise our group can’t avoid making.

After a relaxed lunch, we headed to the Glass Egg Digital Media headquarters. It was a very interesting experience to get an inside look at the company and their development of 3D models and designs. We got a tour of where the artists work and we could see them using the 3D design software to work on various cars, environments, and characters that will be used in video games around the world.

Glass Egg faced many challenges before it managed to gain the success and prestige that it has today. The founders of the company in the 1990s had trouble securing adequate funds to start the company. At that point, many people didn’t understand the concept of outsourcing projects to foreign companies, and so the founders had to explain to companies why they do what they do. Later on, once they gained success in designing cars for video games, they realized that they were some what stuck in a rut, and were only seen as a car-designing company. Since then, they have managed to diversify their products, and now the design of video game environments is the largest growing aspect of the Glass Egg company. It is a company based out of Vietnam, and so they enjoy significantly lower labor costs. In addition, there is much less competition within the country, so they are able to acquire the most skilled artists. Glass Egg hopes to continue expanding their depth of products, and to increase the quality of the models. The video game industry does not seem to be going anywhere any time soon, so it is safe to say that Glass Egg Digital Media can expect continued success in the future.