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Radioactive IT Australian games industry hits $1 billon mark
Radioactive IT Australian games industry hits $1 billon mark | Australian games industry hits $1 billon mark |
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| by Mike Bantick | |
| Tuesday, 31 July 2007 | |
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Generated from both video games and associated hardware, this puts the market over $200 million above cinema box office takings for the same period. "The market is growing as more and more people embrace gaming as a form of entertainment," said Daniel Morse, a games analyst at GfK Australia, which compiled the figures based on sales data from major retailers "All platforms performed extremely well considering the average platform lifecycle, which usually sees hardware sales decline a few years after launch as the market saturates and new technology is released." he said. With the release of the Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation 3, coupled with an already buoyant market devouring Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, Sony PS2 and PC games, the total games industry revenues to June 30 2007 hit AU$1.03 billion. The games industry still trails the home DVD market in Australia which for the same period hovers at AU$1.29 billion. From the SMH story; The Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia (IEAA) said since January 1, over 5.5 million games and almost half a million consoles had been sold. IEAA chief executive, Chris Hanlon, said the impressive result showed Australians were embracing video games as a preferred form of entertainment. "The stereotype of gaming as a children's pursuit is simply wrong, with the average gamer age in Australia at 28," said Hanlon. 41 per cent of Australian gamers are female and 8 per cent are seniors, according to the IEAA. Morse said the increase in games industry revenues over the past financial year was spread evenly across hardware and software. They comprised around 40 per cent and 60 per cent of 2006-07 revenues respectively. As Jason Hill goes on to discuss in his gaming blog SceenPlay , this sort of result should make the Australian government sit up and take notice of a burgeoning industr, that still has major growth potential behind it. Though government support of the industry has been robust – especially in the state of Victoria, there has still been an attitude that the industry centered on children. Despite financial results like this, and recent studies showing that 88 percent of those surveyed (both gamers and non-gamers) supported the call for an R rating for adult orientated games. At the moment in Australia there is no such rating, resulting in games being banned from sale due to an inability by the board to classify a title. With the industry becoming one of the largest in the land, and with a stereotype smashing broader demographic, perhaps now is the time for gaming lobby groups to pressure for an ‘R’ rating.
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