The figures were released by the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia, so they of course are a bit biased, but the numbers certainly look good. The games industry brought in $1.96 billion Australian in calendar year 2008, increasing 47 percent over the previous year. For the same period, box office revenues were $946 million and movies on disc took in $1.4 billion.

What's the reason behind the jump in gaming? Casual family gaming.

Ron Curry, chief executive officer of the IEAA, said gaming had evolved from "the guy sitting in his bedroom with his PC being anti-social" to a "much more social and a whole family event".

He cited recent research from Bond University showing that 68 per cent of Australians played video games and 88 per cent of houses had a gaming machine.

"We've seen a 137 per cent increase in family games - things like music and dance games, party games, puzzle games, that sort of stuff is really making up the bulk of the dollars," he said.

Another triumph for the casual and social gaming sectors! Once we've got them all hooked we'll slowly begin scooting the towards more traditional genres. Perhaps a 3D first-person game where you pet puppies.

Video games thrash movies and DVDs [The Age]

Its analysis draws on a few things we've already heard — how the console cycle drives sales, how the business stayed strong through the 2001 recession, how depressed people seek refuge in escapist entertainment. Some other interesting trends and pitfalls for publishers are identified too.

From the article:

Alex Evans of Media Molecule, the British studio behind “LittleBigPlanet”, a popular PlayStation 3 game, says people in the industry believe gaming has benefited from the rise of the “staycation”, or stay-at-home holiday. It is much cheaper to escape into the world of “Fable II” for a week than to go abroad.

I like it that a quote from the maker of a console exclusive is followed up with a reference to another exclusive on the competing console.

Regarding layoffs and losses:

It is too soon to say whether this signals a wider slowdown. It is not unusual for firms to lay people off at this stage of the console cycle, says Mr Harding-Rolls. At the start of the cycle, he says, publishers “go all out for investment, trying to produce ideas, then at a certain stage in the cycle they pare down.” EA has also suffered because it spread itself too thinly, making too many mediocre games. As retailers try to conserve cash and minimise inventories, many are restocking only the fastest-selling games.

And, how the Wii figures into all this:

EA also failed to anticipate the success of the Nintendo Wii ... Instead, EA and other large publishers have invested heavily in creating games for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, both of which have high-definition graphics that increase the cost of designing games to $15m-25m or more. Failure to control development costs may also have contributed to the publishers’ woes.

But that doesn't mean Nintendo is either the savior, or immune:

The Wii’s great strength—its broad appeal—could turn into a weakness, because less committed gamers will be quicker to cut back. Ominously, in Japan, where the Wii and Nintendo’s hand-held console, the DS, have proved particularly popular with gaming neophytes, sales have slowed sharply since October.

Are Video Games Recession Proof? [The Economist]

The complete brief is here.