I would expect at least US$49.99 for Australians.
2K Games are members of the "50%+ Australia Tax" Club after all.
Does Australia have VAT? Because that's why Paradox made Crusader Kings II 40 dollars and 40 euros, no VAT in the United States.
No taxes; just market factors. Publishers have found the higher price point to be acceptable in the market and so take as much advantage of it as possible.
For Steamworks games, the ways around the "Australia Tax" are any of:
1) Get it from another digital store that sells Steamworks games without discriminatory pricing (e.g. GreenManGaming),
2) Get a North American friend to buy and gift the game to you (from the Steam store),
3) Import the boxed game from another part of the world (typically the UK). e.g. ozgameshop.com
Unfortunately when importing games you can wait up to 3 weeks to recieve things, but at least it is cheaper.
Thanks for the info about GreenManGaming.
You also may be able to use a VPN (and changing your country in your profile settings) of some description to trick steam into think you're in, say, the US - although I don't think they'd take kindly to it if they found out what you'd done.
Valve/Steam prohibits the use of VPNs for making purchases and doing so would put you at risk of having your account suspended, possibly permanently, if Valve finds out. As far as I'm aware it would constitute fraud as the customer would need to falsify his address.
Considering there are legitimate alternatives it would make no sense to take such a risk.
This expansion is targeted for a late spring release this year in stores or through Steam for $29.99.
Nah, I think the word you're looking for is "greed." Everyone charges the same price for online versions because they can and they're greedy bastards.Well, it's not real shipping costs on steam. However, I suspect it has something to do with maintaining good relations with the brick and mortar stores that would otherwise have to charge more.