ABSTRACT
Australia. For those who don’t live here, the word conjures images of red deserts, bounding marsupials and men who wrestle with prehistoric reptiles. This is the stuff of what Russell Ward called the Australian legend,3 an image born of white Australia that has been chiselled out of the stone of colonial settlement over the course of some 200 years. It’s a compelling vision that is reinforced today through tourism campaigns and popular fi lm culture. The Australian cultural stereotype depicted through national sporting heroes and characters like Crocodile Dundee or the late Steve Irwin does not give any hint that beneath the muddy waters of Australian culture lurks a nation of video game players.
