Recently here at GadgetBridge we looked at how older participants are part of the tech boom, as people over the age of 65 in Australia have widely embraced gaming. Indeed, these silver gamers have doubled in volume over the last four years, reaching 40% within the 65+ age demographic.
This was an intriguing data point featured in the Australia Plays report for 2023, published by the Interactive Games & Entertainment Association, which is the leading advocate organisation for the games industry in the Oceania region. They also highlighted that 81% of all Australians now enjoy gaming, which is up from 67% indicated by the 2021 surveys and research. But what about the industry itself in terms of revenues generated?
Well, that’s where things get a little more complicated. What’s generally referred to as “mainstream” gaming relates to video games, along with associated hardware and devices. Meanwhile, there‘s also the “iGaming” sector, which refers to online betting and casino gaming, although that also falls under the mandate of different legislatures and regulations.
Only by looking at both individually can we get a true picture, as we seek to understand how much Australians actually spend overall on gaming entertainment.
Australian Video Game Revenues
More often than not, the video games industry is how mainstream gaming is most commonly known. Earlier this year, IGEA published the most complete revenue statistics for the sector, covering the financial year from 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2023. This provided a snapshot of Australian consumer video game sales, indicating continued and sustained growth across all segments.
The IGEA report incorporated total sales numbers for games, hardware, and peripherals, which produced a total overall spend by Australians of AUD 4.21 billion, which marks a rise of 5% compared to previous to the previous 2021-2022 financial year figures. But aside from the total sales, this report also provided interesting data for how that sum was reached.
Mobile gaming now accounts for the biggest share, having reached AUD 1.56 billion in revenues, while digital downloads and online gaming achieved AUD 1.5 billion in sales. But what’s also fascinating is that compared to elsewhere around the world, Australia bucked the trend for declining traditional retail video game sales, which rose by 7% in 2023 to AUD 1.15 billion.
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Online Casino Gaming Revenues
Now as we mentioned earlier, the iGaming sector falls under the remit of different licensing and regulations, compared to mainstream gaming. But essentially, this covers the kind of online casino games and sites that Aussies will find at TopAustralianGambling reviews and guides. These include everything from pokies to roulette, plus card games like poker and blackjack, among a diverse and wide range of games available to players these days.
Proving that Australia genuinely is a nation which thoroughly enjoys gambling, this hugely popular leisure activity generated AUD 6.82 billion in revenues in 2022, rising by 7.09% to AUD 7.3 billion in 2023. Based on the numbers calculated by imarcgroup analysis, this growth is projected to continue at a sustained rate over the next several years, despite the introduction of increasingly stringent legislature and regulations Down Under.
By comparison, revenues for offline casino gaming have steadily fallen over the last few years, dropping to around AUD 5.8 billion in 2023. Inevitably, the biggest hit came during the pandemic, when physical gambling venues and casinos were forced to close their doors, and in the meantime, the growth of online casino gaming has accelerated and taken over.
Combined Total Revenues
Such numbers unequivocally prove that right now, the iGaming sector is already significantly larger than the video games sector, indicating that in truth, both are genuinely “mainstream” in nature. Taking the combined figures we now have, Aussies have spent AUD 11.51 billion on their overall gaming pastimes, which is more per head of the population than anywhere else in the world.
