Western Australia is seeking to strengthen its position in Australia’s rapidly expanding video game industry, with local developers benefiting from new public funding but facing fierce competition for skilled workers from the mining sector.
Australians spent more than A$4.2 billion on video games and related products in 2025, a 12 per cent rise on the previous year, according to figures from the Interactive Games and Entertainment Association.
Mobile gaming accounted for the largest share of spending, exceeding A$1.7 billion, while digital sales passed A$1.4 billion. The figures reflect a broader shift in gaming from a pastime associated mainly with children to a mainstream form of entertainment.
Jonathan Pillai, dean of learning futures at Curtin University, said the growth of mobile gaming had made the industry accessible to a much wider audience.
“When games got casual enough to be played on the phone, I think that was a big change,” he said. “That means a game is for everyone, not just the kid in the room.”
Western Australia’s video game industry aims to grow
Australian studios have also demonstrated their ability to compete internationally. Adelaide-based Team Cherry’s Hollow Knight has sold more than 15 million copies worldwide, while its sequel, Hollow Knight: Silksong, passed seven million sales within three months of its release.
Melbourne developer House House also sold more than one million copies of its game Big Walk in its first week after launching in August.
The industry’s expansion has been supported by the federal digital games tax offset, introduced to help Australian studios compete with overseas developers operating in lower-cost markets.
Ron Curry, chief executive of the Interactive Games and Entertainment Association, said Australia had previously been at a significant cost disadvantage.
“It instantly made us 30 to 40 per cent more dear than anywhere else in the world,” he said. The tax offset, he added, had helped “level the playing field” for Australian developers.
Western Australia’s state government announced A$2 million over two years in April 2026 to support the local digital games industry, with Screenwest administering the funding.
Screenwest’s Digital Games Strategy 2026-29 aims to increase the number of games companies based in the state by 50 per cent, raise the annual economic contribution of supported projects from A$2.2 million to A$4 million and help bring at least six supported games to market each year by 2029.
Screenwest supported 22 projects through its Digital Games Production Fund in 2024-25. The projects were expected to contribute about A$2.2 million to the Western Australian economy.
Anthony Sweet, Screenwest’s digital games manager, said the state had the creative talent and collaborative culture needed to benefit from the sector’s global growth.
Games including Misc. A Tiny Tale, Lunars, Zodiac Mountain, Ghost Cam and Don’t Stop, Girly Pop! were among the Western Australian titles showcased at Pixel Expo in Perth.
Screenwest has also supported Perth developer Aaron Dark during the early development of HYPERDROP. The project was later presented at Melbourne International Games Week, where it was taken on by international independent publisher Devolver.
But Curry said Western Australian studios remained under pressure when recruiting staff with technical and creative skills.
“Those studios are competing for talent that go into industries like mining,” he said. “It’s hard as a small startup business to compete with the salaries that the mining industry is paying.”
Sweet said the skills developed by game creators were transferable to industries including banking, mining, healthcare and user-experience design. He said some developers were moving out of established sectors to create their own studios as their projects gained traction.
The challenge for Western Australia will be to turn growing interest and government assistance into a sustainable development base, rather than allowing talented workers and promising companies to be drawn to larger eastern-state studios or higher-paying industries.
