The Australian video games industry experienced massive growth during 2008, and is now twice the size of the Australian box office sector and 40% larger than the DVD industry. Sales figures from the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia shows that games industry revenue increased 47% during the 2008 calendar year, reaching $1.96 billion. The Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia released figures showing just a 6% increase to $946 million, while revenue for movies sold on DVDs and Blu-Ray jumped 5% to $1.4 billion.
IEAA chief executive Ron Curry puts the industry’s success down to the evolution of gaming from “the guy sitting in his bedroom with his PC being anti-social” to a “much more social and a whole family event”.
“We’ve seen a 137% increase in family games – things like music and dance games, party games, puzzle games; that sort of stuff is really making up the bulk of the dollars,” he told The Age.
The growth of the games industry has largely been associated with family games available on the Nintendo Wii, 2008’s highest selling console.
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
