Can we retire the 'get back in the kitchen' comments yet?
The Interactive Games & Entertainment Association’s annual Australia Plays report is out, and the message this year is clear - games are for everyone.
Published since 2005, this decades-long, yearly study of video game play in Australian households has seen a higher number of female players than male for the first time, with 51% female, 48% male and nearly half a percent reporting as non-binary.
In my opinion, the fact that aussie women are just as likely to play games as men should be a fact that is known by everyone. As more women have started to play year-on-year, flaming someone else online for appearing as a ‘girl gamer’ should be becoming less and less common.
“It gives me something to look forward to. If I’m having a bad day at work, I think about coming home and getting to play my games. My partner and I play Fortnite most days and it’s a way for us to sit together and connect as it requires patience and good communication,” one woman explained in the study.
A common misconception is that video games are isolating. The report also found that 77% of Australians who play video games play them with others socially. “Evidence about the social ways in which Australians play video games has busted the long-standing stereotypes about lonely and competitive play,” it said.
“In a time where we are recognising a loneliness epidemic, video games can provide an avenue to help find connections. Most respondents agree video games have potential mental health benefits for those who play, whether they are young or old. These benefits include resilience, building self-confidence, managing stress and depression and developing emotional intelligence,” explained Dr. Jeffrey Brand, Professor at Bond University.
Another common misconception that we see outlets running with over and over again, is that kids are the primary audience for video games, however these surveys have consistently shown that the average video game player is an adult.
Out of all Australians who play games as of 2025, 71% are working-age adults, 19% are children, and 10% are older adults of retirement age. IGEA says that while it saw a rapid increase in the average age of the video game audience for 2 decades, it’s now levelling out to the average age of the broader Aussie population. “Since the 2023 report, the average age of video game players has risen slightly by a few months, but remains at 35 years in 2025,” the authors stated.
This shift makes a lot of sense considering that the majority of Aussies play video games: 82% of them, which is up from 81% last year.
The full report, which is available here, goes into detail about reasons why each age group plays video games, including for mental health with 94% of players gaming to de-stress.
“It helps keep a positive attitude and goals to reach which also enables motivation and a purpose for other areas to set goals in daily life, it also relieves mental stress by relaxing you and leaving you with accomplishment for that area,” said a 65-year-old participant.
The report also goes into detail about why parents let their children play video games and the skills that video games help to develop. I hope, as I hope every year, that this report will help Australians realise the benefits of video games and reduce the stigma around them.
As the authors put it: “Today the reality that video games are not only popular, but that they are popular for everyone at every age has been well documented through this research.”
(SIFTER notes that the margin of error for this survey is 2.7%.)
