On August 19, 2026, Screen Australia released Screen Currency 2.0. This update to the 2016 project sought to comprehensively value and evidence the economic, social and cultural impact of Australian screen and video game production through a range of intersecting research methods.

Teams from the UniSC, University of Canberra, RMIT, QUT, McAtamney & Advisors and 89 Degrees East, contributed to an important project that will have national impact.

Australia is home to an innovative video game industry and the production and development of video games in Australia dates back decades.

Australian-made video games have won international awards and been featured in museum exhibitions.

Australians are also enthusiastic video game players. Research from the Interactive Games and Entertainment Association (IGEA) indicates that 82 percent of Australians play video games.

Indeed, video games are one of the most popular forms of entertainment available today and most adults grew up playing video games of one kind or another.

I worked with Dr Rory Mulcahy, Dr Phoebe Macrossan, Professor Christian Jones and research assistant Dr Riarna Hellyer from UniSC to investigate how Australian and international video game players valued Australian-made video games. 

Two thousand two hundred and eight Australian and 1,610 international video game players from India, the UK, USA and Canada were surveyed, and 28 Australian video game players took part in focus groups.

Our report revealed that Australian video game players feel it is important that Australia has a video game industry and believe it should have more support.

Participants in our focus groups felt proud that Australia is producing video games achieving international critical and commercial success, such as Untitled Goose Game, which won a BAFTA among other awards and was exhibited in ACMI in Melbourne.

However, 60 percent of respondents to our Australian survey did not know if they had played Australian video games.

Also, Australian survey respondents, who had played three of the most impactful games in recent years, Unpacking, Hollow Knight: Silksong and Untitled Goose Game, were able to identify them as Australian video games about half the time: 43.7 percent, 45 percent and 53.1 percent respectively. 

Compared with Australian respondents, international gamers were generally less likely to correctly identify Australian video games, except those from the UK.

Fifty-five percent, who had played Hollow Knight: Silksong, correctly identified it as an Australian video game.

Despite struggling to identify Australian-made games as Australian, international and Australian survey respondents found that Australian-made video games provided them with positive emotional and social value and were thought to be of high quality.

One focus group participant described how Unpacking, another BAFTA award-winning game developed in Brisbane, made him cry because of its narrative.

Australian-made video games also helped respondents de-stress from responsibilities such as work and caring.

India also emerged as a potentially valuable market, with Indian respondents identifying video games as Australian-made at higher rates than respondents from other countries, including Australia, as well as playing Australian-made video games at greater rates.

Given India has 590 million video game players, the country’s players will be important to understand better in the future.

Australian-made video games are thus valued internationally and at home, but our research revealed that additional support is needed to ensure they can be found and identified by players.

Video game developers in Australia are often smaller studios that lack resources for key aspects of production including marketing, localization and knowledge.

Our research for Screen Currency demonstrates that Australian-made video games provide Australian and international video game players with value.

But with big, sophisticated video game industries like Japan and the USA as competitors and over 10,000 video games being released on Steam each year, the leading digital marketplace for buying games, the industry is very competitive.

What is needed next is to ensure that Australian video game developers are supported to ensure the Australian industry can continue to grow. 

Disclosure statement

Dr Jacqueline Burgess receives funding from Screen Australia and is the treasurer of the Digital Games Research Association Australia.