We’re looking at the theme of retail transformation this week, and one area where change is clearly happening is gaming. A new report suggests that while almost half of Australians still purchase games from a local retailer, alternate options are growing in popularity.
According to the Digital Australia 2012 report, which was based on a survey of 1252 Australian households, 43 per cent of gamers purchase games from stores, 22 per cent buy from download stores, and 14 per cent use online stores to access games. Total sales of games in 2010 were $1.7 billion, so even 14 per cent is a healthy chunk of change. The average weekly spend on gaming was $29.
Obviously, this kind of shopping is not an either/or choice: some download games can’t be purchased in any other format, for instance. Right now, I feel I’ve got a better chance of finding a specialist games retailer in a shopping mall than a specialist music store. Ten years ago, the reverse was more likely.
Digital Australia [via Kotaku]
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