Aussie Video Game Spending Levelled Up To Over $3 Billion In 2017

I don’t think I have to tell you all that Australians love video games. That’s a pretty well established fact these days, but it’s always nice to point out with some red hot statistics, you know?

The Interactive Games & Entertainment Association (IGEA) released the latest spending figures today, announcing that Australian consumers spent a massive $3.23 billion on games and related hardware in 2017, which is up 9 per cent on the previous year.

In terms of what we’re buying, physical retail games and hardware make up $1.176 billion, while digital sales account for $2.054 billion, $1.004 billion of which was from mobile game sales.

The biggest spike in spending was in the console hardware department, increasing by 36 per cent on the previous year’s figures. Given the Nintendo Switch, SNES Classic, and Xbox One X were all released during 2017, it’s easy to see why there was such a dramatic rise in spending.

Since the IGEA started publishing these stats back in 2008 / 2009, industry revenue has grown by more than $1 billion, showing our hunger for gaming as the unyielding beast it is.

“Despite the huge amount of entertainment options available to Australians, the appetite for games shows no signs of waning, evidenced by growth across the entire industry,” IGEA CEO Ron Curry said in a statement.

“In 2017, we saw gamers embrace new and updated consoles. At the same time, there was lots of love shown and nostalgia for old favourites – both hardware and games. Australians enjoy buying products in-store, where they can seek out hands-on experiences and advice from retail staff, and similarly they are very comfortable downloading full games and additional content.”

Given our love of all things gaming, it would be nice if the government introduced more and better initiatives for Aussie game developers. There’s some amazing indie studios creating incredible stuff out there and they deserve more support.

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