Page 1307 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 3 April 2019
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E-sports, as it is known, is professional level competitive gaming in an organised format with, as we have heard, big prizes. These sports are predicted to become a $A2.5 billion industry globally by 2022, more than doubling from around $1.2 billion last year.
In 2017 the world championship for the video game League of Legends was held in China. The developer of the game said that the finale of the championship attracted a global audience of around 60 million people. In 2018 the same competition held in South Korea became the most watched e-sports event in history, reaching a peak of over 200 million concurrent viewers.
To put this in some perspective, last year’s AFL grand final between two teams no-one really cares about had a 4.3 million-viewership. The 2018 NRL grand final, similarly between two unimportant teams, attracted around three million viewers. The American Super Bowl, in a much larger country with a sport that has a degree of global interest, attracted around 100 million viewers globally. In 2018 there was more than $A185 million in prizes awarded for the top 10 e-sports games. So it is clear that this is a booming industry that is going to continue to grow and evolve.
But it is fair to say that in our country e-sports is still in its infancy. States and territories are only now starting to make the link between industry development, tourism and economic development in this context. Last year our Victorian colleagues hosted the Melbourne e-sports open at Melbourne Park and over 12,000 fans attended the two-day event, and our Victorian colleagues estimate that it will bring in around $25 million over five years to their state’s economy.
In this context it is clear that Canberra has an opportunity to leverage this new market and to play a role in becoming a leader in our country in e-sports. We are fortunate to have a number of major contributors to Australia’s creative digital sector in our city in terms of game development and technologies and screen and video production. They are already based here, and our unique offering of a strong knowledge economy has seen important collaborative relationships develop in related technology specialities.
In particular, it is important to highlight the work of the Academy of Interactive Entertainment, AIE, who have been based in Canberra since 1997. The AIE is a major contributor to the creative digital sector in this nation and in this city through the expansion of its game development, animation and simulation training capabilities, grants and incubated programs and creation of film production infrastructure and, more broadly, job creation in Canberra. The AIE is behind the establishment of the Game Developers Association of Australia, the former Australian Game Developers Conference, and most recently the student AIE incubators set up in major cities across the country.
We are very fortunate to have Game Plus located at the AIE’s Canberra campus. It is an example of a collaborative workspace for game developers and related specialist technology start-ups. I have had the opportunity to visit Game Plus in recent times. Screen Canberra also plays a significant role in supporting local creative industries through engagement and professional development, and we have a great opportunity
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