Digital Australia Report 2016

Foreword:
We are witnessing breathtaking changes in the realm of digital interactive entertainment. It is hard to imagine that 15 years ago, we were debating the worth,even potential harms, of simple video games. Today attention is on the potential of this amazing medium to reinvigorate education, workplace training, consumer engagement and social and political conversation. Interactive entertainment is celebrated for its economic importance.There have been many voices in the call to treat games as a serious medium for the knowledge age. The five IGEA-Bond University reports preceding this one have contributed to the chorus of voices. Our national studies of computer game audiences have broken down stereotypes that prevented understanding in the wider community that computer games were not only a popular medium, but a productive medium. In this report, we turn our attention to providing more finely grained observations about play behaviour and to offering a set of baseline measures of Australians’ engagement with game culture and the use of games for productive and so-called “serious” purposes such as education, training and health.