Video games are more popular than ever in Australia especially with parents, research has found.

Once video games were confined to arcades and corner stores; relieving teenagers of their hard earned coins in return for hours of pixelated pleasure.

Now a study has found 92 per cent of Australian households now have a video game device.

These include consoles, personal computers, mobile phones, tablets and handheld systems.

Digital Australia 2014 has found the popularity of video games is continuing to grow.

The study was conducted by Bond University on behalf of the Interactive Games and Entertainment Association.

Researchers quizzed 3,398 people of all ages in 1,220 households across the country about their gaming.

They discovered that 81 per cent of mums and 83 per cent of dads are gamers.

It also found 53 per cent of parents play games as a way to spend time with their children.

Bond University communications lecturer Jeffrey Brand co-authored the study with Pascaline Lorentz and Trishita Mathew.

Dr Brand admits a fondness for the iconic Pac-Man and more contemporary games like first-person shooter Halo.

"It's amazing how much games have come along in my lifetime," he says.

"From their early days of the Atari 2600 and the old arcades, to now being these immersive environments in the home."

Growth of video games

Bond University has been conducting video game usage research since it first published Gameplay Australia in 2005.

Dr Brand says the prevalence of video games means they are now considered part of the mainstream.

Other findings include:



The average gamer age is 32 years old

65 per cent of Australians play games

47 per cent of gamers are female

Typical usage is an average of one hour, daily

The average adult gamer has been playing for 11 years

98 per cent of homes with children have games

73 per cent talk about games with their children

While the numbers seem high, Dr Brand says less than 5 per cent of Australians play games more than seven hours a day.

He says there are always concerns about new mediums which occupy a lot of people's time and there is always a small proportion of people who will have behavioural addictions.

"You can have workaholics as we call them, you can have gym junkies, you can also have people who are bookworms," he says.

"Certainly you can get people who spend too much time playing video games... there's going to be a certain percentage of the population who have addictive personalities."

Gaming for the future

The increase in tablets and mobile phones has seen gaming taken back out of the home and onto the streets, public transport and ironically back into corner stores.

Home consoles are still popular but Dr Brand says people are using gaming to fill in time and relieve boredom wherever they are.

"It's quite clear that it's still seen as a leisure activity," he says.

The study will be used to better understand how powerful the gaming industry is and how Australia can make the most of the ever-growing digital economy.

Read the full Digital Australia 2014 report on the IGEA site.