Venture Nearly 70 percent of New Zealanders play video games – and their spending is solid March 26, 2018 0 IGEA’s report, based on research from the NPD Group and Telsyte, showed that an appreciation for gaming was alive and well in New Zealand, with Kiwis spending $452.3 million on games and hardware in 2017. The expenditure representing a 7 percent increase from 2016, a rate of growth that could see total consumer spending top half a billion this year. Ron Curry, the CEO of IGEA, said the latest sales figures were confirmation that the New Zealand video and computer games industry was in “great shape”. The growth in both physical and digital channels indicates that when it comes to games content, New Zealanders aren’t choosy about how they access games content. While home console hardware was up by 10 percent, it was mobile game sales that dominated the digital games market to the tune of $175 million, with a 12 percent rise in total digital sales. A result that Telsyte’s managing director, Foad Fadaghi, believed was a result of improved access to faster internet. “With greater than 70 percent of households having access to the ultra-fast broadband (UFB), New Zealand’s gamers continue to increase their spending on digital games and extras at a rapid rate,” he said. The study, which looked into 807 New Zealand households and 2288 individuals of all ages, found that 67 percent of New Zealanders played video games. The average player, a 34-year-old male, saying that passing time, having fun and de-stressing were key motives to picking up the controller. The only drop in NPD’s data was found in overall physical retail sales, but IGEA said this was offset by a 4 percent increase in sales volume. This story first appeared at The Register.
