Australian Pricing Rip Off

2K sets the pricing in every region. If it's too high, see if you can buy it in stores cheaper. The box copies all have a Steam serial key anyways.
 
I remember a thread a while ago where a guy was furious at the australian price of Civ 5. I looked it up, and that appears to be the average cost of a PC game. I think new Xbox 360 and PS3 games in Australia costs something like 90 bucks AUD.

I don't know what the exchange rate is between Australian and American dollars or the reason behind the pricing difference, all I know is that it must suck to be an Australian gamer.
 
ask for someone to buy it in US and ship it overnight to you. Would that work?
 
This isn't spam, just to clarify:

If you're in Australia or New Zealand buy CIV V off http://www.ozgameshop.com - they're based in the UK but use PayPal so you can pay in AUD and they also have FREE SHIPPING to AU and NZ. They currently have the Civ V pre-order for $39.99 AUD.

The downside is their is no special edition (so not Babylon till it's released as DLC somewhere down the line) and you may not receive the game till early next week considering they might not post it till Friday.

Seriously vote with your wallet against stupid greedy publishers and companies like EB games and their rip off prices.
 
With The Aussie $ at 0.90 or 0.95 US dollars, that pricing is way off.
 
Today's exchange rate is 1 AUD = 0.9585 though this is the highest it's been for decades.

I'm use to rip off prices for books and console games, and I now purchase books online, this is the first time in years I've been looking to buy a new release PC game, and I looked to Steam as the demo is available from there.
 
Publishers generally require Steam to sell new releases at the retail MSRP for each region, even if retailers are selling below the MSRP.
 
mattigus said:
I remember a thread a while ago where a guy was furious at the australian price of Civ 5. I looked it up, and that appears to be the average cost of a PC game. I think new Xbox 360 and PS3 games in Australia costs something like 90 bucks AUD.

I don't know what the exchange rate is between Australian and American dollars or the reason behind the pricing difference, all I know is that it must suck to be an Australian gamer.
Click to expand...

The exchange rate is 95 cents AUD to $1 USD. It's been between 89 - 100 USD for 1 AUD for a while now, over a year at least.

We also have a luxury tax and a GST (goods and services tax) that drives up prices on physical copies a little but it doesn't come close to justifying the obscene prices some of these games have (particularly with consoles as it's harder to pirate console games and hence retailers feel more confident selling them at a higher price.

$90? I wish. Try $110 for a new box copy of a console A+ title. AAA+ titles like Modern Warfare 2 get to maybe $120 - 140 (I personally saw MW2 at $140 in an EB games, which is a subsidiary of GameStop US).

It doesn't stop with games though, electronics, computer parts, guitars are all atrociously expensive. Try about $1500 - $2000 for a decent gaming rig with not quite the latest stuff. American made Fenders start at $2200 here. In America? about
$1000.

And hell, our economy didn't even go into recession with the global economic downturn.

StarCraft II was selling at my local EB games for $100 on release. Dawn of War II $90 on release. Red Dead Redemption second hand in the second month after release? $99

Admittedly it gets worse in some areas where there is less competition.
 
This is what you Australians pay for ANY game. Didn't you know your own government put a HUGE tax on video games? Luckily for you, the game is on Steam, so you can have an American buddy buy it for you as a gift.
 
Revoran said:
The exchange rate is 95 cents AUD to $1 USD. It's been between 89 - 100 USD for 1 AUD for a while now, over a year at least.

We also have a luxury tax and a GST (goods and services tax) that drives up prices on physical copies a little but it doesn't come close to justifying the obscene prices some of these games have (particularly with consoles as it's harder to pirate console games and hence retailers feel more confident selling them at a higher price.

$90? I wish. Try $110 for a new box copy of a console A+ title. AAA+ titles like Modern Warfare 2 get to maybe $120 - 140 (I personally saw MW2 at $140 in an EB games, which is a subsidiary of GameStop US).

It doesn't stop with games though, electronics, computer parts, guitars are all atrociously expensive. Try about $1500 - $2000 for a decent gaming rig with not quite the latest stuff. American made Fenders start at $2200 here. In America? about
$1000.

And hell, our economy didn't even go into recession with the global economic downturn.

StarCraft II was selling at my local EB games for $100 on release. Dawn of War II $90 on release. Red Dead Redemption second hand in the second month after release? $99

Admittedly it gets worse in some areas where there is less competition.
Click to expand...

Add everything written here with the fact that the Australian government will straight up ban games unless they are approved by some government appointed board and I will reiterate my point: It must suck to be an Australian gamer.
 
Also you should know that some shops that are selling to aussies from overseas are stopping further sales because they believe that 2K is going to have Steam enforce region locking to prevent free market competition.

An example is g2play.net

I have had trouble with 2 shops now, just trying to purchase this game because of regional pricing issues.

I originally wanted to purchase the premium product, digital deluxe from direct2drive, but again 2K prevented selling that product to my region, so they lost ~US$10 already because i cant purchase that premium product.

If i cannot purchase this game legitimately for a fair and reasonable price (~US$50) before pirates release this game, then.. well.. the publisher lost a perfectly good sale for this game.

I've spent at least a couple of hours now sending emails, making orders, trying so damn hard to buy this game... why does 2K make it so hard to pay money for their game?
 
Likewise here, I refuse to pay a US$30 premium (+data charges) for a digital download via steam just because of my region. Its the same damn download from the same damn servers its always the same 5 publishers that do it too, 2K being one of them. At US$50 I was quite happy to buy this game at US$80 they will get nothing from me and I'll still play it, just 4-14days after release dependant on the cracking scene. Seems we can always rely on publishers to find new ways to push potential customers the pirates way.
 
I just bought it from EB Games in New Zealand for NZ$99.99 => US$71.
We pay approx 20% premium on most computer stuff when compared to the US, :(
 
I hate to say it, but with a golden economy, no government debt, hardly any unemployment and a budget surplus Australia is just massively expensive because the economy is so good. I travel for a living and I buy nothing at home, im always coming back with bags of stuff.
 
I think you need to look into seeing if your government charges a vat on good (value added tax) I know they do in most european countries, that's why every thing cost more. The tax is just passed on to you! Not sure about your country though ?
 
Ah yes...there is a VAT but only 99% of the population know about it.

It is 10%.

Companies charge more in Australia because the economy is very strong. They know they can get away with it. Unlike Europe and America, Australia is not subising protected industries like agriculture and manufacturing and consequently has a competitive economy. It runs a surplus budget. The market can sustain high prices on a lot of stuff.
 
I honestly would be shocked if the government wasn't subsidizing in some form or another, almost every western government is guilty of this, then again I'm no expert
 
The rubbish people say about Australian Govt tax. Just for the record, as someone who has lived their entire lives in Australia, there is only a 10% tax (called the GST) on the game. No other taxes that I have heard of apply. The only thing games need to be sold here is approval from classification board, which Im sure has some one off cost, but it's not a tax or anything. I haven't heard of any import tax that they might pay.

If someone has any links to show that their is hidden taxes, by all means let me know but unless proven, the only reason we get screwed is because we are used to paying that much for games in the past and no one cares enough to change the price-gouging we get. So quite a few find ways around it as we don't like getting screwed.
 
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