Australian Parliament Subpoenas Microsoft, Apple on Price Hikes

aelreth

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The price change doesn't surprise me, in Alaska goods typically cost 50% more. They do this because we are generally seen as wealthier and its costs a bit to ship.

If you look at Australia's debt to GDP ratio in comparison with the US you'll likely notice that Australia in that view is much wealthier (if you factor in the entitlements it's a frightening shift).
 

Therumancer

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Nov 28, 2007
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rapidoud said:
whole country's situation).

2. "I've heard, I've heard" that's nice, but what you just typed out is not applicable to us. At all.

.
The media talking about global issues, wrong... Australian citizens and New Zealanders who say differantly... wrong too. All bad sources. Business news? Wrong, bad source.

See, one of the reasons why I'm such a bastard on these forums a lot of the time is that every time I try and be nice, or partiall concede a point I get these kinds of responses, which seep so much ignorance it's not funny, and are phrased insultingly.

Basically what your saying here is "any source that disagrees with me, is by definition wrong" that means there is no reason to even have a discussion. The bottom line is you want cheaper goods, you do not know or care about why the situation might be justified, or why what you want might not even be possible to the extent that you want it. Anything that disagrees with you has to be wrong because your righteousness is self evident. That's pretty much the extent of your arguement as pretty much explained by point 2.

We're pretty much done.
 

Therumancer

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Aardvaarkman said:
Therumancer said:
The bottom line is this, when it comes to physical products being shipped to Australia, you still need to load them onto a boat or a plane and bring them there. There is more to it than a simple question of the relative value of currency.
Except that physical copies of games are usually significantly cheaper to buy in Australia than their digitally delivered counterparts.

It's pretty insane, actually. You can go to the local discount chain and buy a game for around $66 to $88 on Blu-Ray disc, that would cost $90 to $120 to buy online via download (and you can lend or re-sell the physical copy, unlike the downloaded version). So, physical shipping doesn't appear to be the issue - especially as the copy bought in the store involves more middle-men, what with the retailer needing to make a profit and pay for bricks-and-mortar, while the more expensive downloadable version has fewer middle-men, and fewer delivery costs.

Although the title of the article does kind of bug me when it mentions "price hikes" - which implies a sudden increase in price. This is not the case. If anything, games in Australia have gotten cheaper in recent years. Yes, there is a disparity in price compared to the US, but that's always been the case. It isn't a "hike" - it's just the way it's always been.
The question of course comes down to how many of those physical, boxed, games are actually real. More of a side point than anything, but bootlegging is another whole issue here, and Australia is a big market for bootlegged asian goods. A lot of the counterfeits look almost exactly like the real article and can even in many cases get online to networks at least for a while, which is half the problem (game companies complaining about stress on their servers coming from products they never actually sold, especially if they wound up having a keygen hacked so a foreign manufacturer can make access numbers).

To put it into perspective I one bought a DS copy of Grand Theft Auto "Chinatown Wars" online. It looks absolutly authentic, right down to the box... except for one laughable detail... it has "rated E" on the front. Kind of funny when the first thing you see upon loading it is a bunch of bags of coke being turned into cash, and the first character trait I remember from our hero is him proclaiming his love of kung-fu movies and exotic pornography. ;)

The point being that this is half the reason why people complain about China. They happen to be closer to some markets like Australia and knock off everything from games to garmets (like Jeans) and pass them off as the genuine article, for which they can pass casual inspection and last a while before the quality deteriates as a knockoff. It's another factor that doubtlessly effects the market down there. I didn't mention it before because it's something that is likely to cause an arguement... but yeah, whether legally accepted trade or not, it's a bit more plausible/easier for Asian and other third world sweatshops to ship goods to Australia than it is for western manufacturers to do so.
 

Therumancer

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MagunBFP said:
[

On behalf of most Aussies on here I'm going to ask that you stop posting about something that you have no actual facts about. First off, almost everything you say is based on what you're been told second or third hand from the aussies and kiwis in your guild, hardly a representitive sample. Secondly you don't actually contribute anything factual about the motivations behind pricing, every time you mention it its always "I believe" or "I've heard" or "My guess" or words to that effect, I have nothing against you having an opinion but an opinion based on nothing is really not an arguement its just an idea without substance.

)
Not quite. As I said to another responder. The bottom line here is that you want cheaper goods, and really don't care much about the facts involved, or that the costs might be justified, or at least more justified than you want to believe. It's also a case where you want want Aussies QQ about in other cases to be overlooked when it comes to a case where those complaints don't serve your current self-interest.

In argueing with me your basically argueing with both your own people, most of the time (and no, I'm not going to stop using what people say, I'm dealing with a fairly large sampling actually, since we get political QQ about some of these subjects on forums like this as well, I've just discussed it in more detail with people in my former guild), and also international business, news, and finance sources.

The big thing is that this is an internet debate, not me bringing a case before a congressional committee, a court of law, or even a collegiate debate club. Like most of my posts I'm confident enough of what I speak where I know if YOU do the research you'll find out I'm right, but I'm not going to do your research for you, because frankly it's more effort than an internet debate is worth, not to mention it usually amounts to providing the moon really isn't made of green cheese, and frankly no matter what I do isn't going to convince someone who really believes that and only listens to sources that tells them what they want to believe. When I sit down and read say "Newsweek" or watch the TV news I don't sit there and record everything or file clippings and keep stacks of papers next to my computer just so I can engage in the futile exercise of convincing some guy on the internet that he's wrong.

The bottom line is we're pretty much done here. You want what you want. I do not think the situation is anywhere near as clear cut as you like to make it out to be. Time will tell if what you want is even possible. In your favor though it does seem that Adobe at least conceded.
 

EvilRoy

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Therumancer said:
In argueing with me your basically argueing with both your own people, most of the time (and no, I'm not going to stop using what people say, I'm dealing with a fairly large sampling actually, since we get political QQ about some of these subjects on forums like this as well, I've just discussed it in more detail with people in my former guild), and also international business, news, and finance sources.

The big thing is that this is an internet debate, not me bringing a case before a congressional committee, a court of law, or even a collegiate debate club. Like most of my posts I'm confident enough of what I speak where I know if YOU do the research you'll find out I'm right, but I'm not going to do your research for you, because frankly it's more effort than an internet debate is worth, not to mention it usually amounts to providing the moon really isn't made of green cheese, and frankly no matter what I do isn't going to convince someone who really believes that and only listens to sources that tells them what they want to believe. When I sit down and read say "Newsweek" or watch the TV news I don't sit there and record everything or file clippings and keep stacks of papers next to my computer just so I can engage in the futile exercise of convincing some guy on the internet that he's wrong.
It's actually taken me a few tries to come up with a reasonable response to this. I kind of feel like I need to respond, even though I'm not the person you were talking to, just based purely on the frankly unbelievable content of your post. I guess I'm just going to try to go through it in paragraph-list form this time.

The first thing I note, is the general feeling that since it's an internet debate you don't have to try. This is wrong for a few reasons, but I suppose the biggest one is that it basically communicates that you never actually came here for a discussion. Instead, you came here to lecture, for what reasons I can't be sure. You seem to have started with the idea that you are right ["...it usually amounts to proving the moon really isn't made of green cheese..."], the best informed [no one else watches TV news or reads a paper apparently], the least biased (we'll get to that one in paragraph two) out of everyone in the thread and just rolled with it from there. Someone dare to imply that your knowledge is less complete than you think it is? The words you used were "We're pretty much done"/"We're done here", sprinkled with a bit of "you disagree with me because you're biased". You haven't even bothered to respond to the fact that two or three people have explained in detail how internet service works in Australia and why it should not affect prices, despite the fact that you were apparently plainly mistaken.

Over to bias. Ignoring the statement you made with regards to laws existing to keep digital distribution from undercutting retail outlets (presumably you at least did a cursory read through of the legislation you refer to, so there is no need to question a matter of legal fact), everything you cited has its own built in bias. "Newsweek", TV news and your friends are not unbiased distributors of information. That you are able to ignore the bias and dig down to the facts of the matter is demonstrated by your interpretation of that evidence, something we could easily confirm had you bothered to provide any.

Bringing me to the final point, and the most heinous action on your part in my opinion, here: "but I'm not going to do your research for you". You aren't doing our research for us. You are presenting the research that you have allegedly done to us, so we can judge its merits and interpret its results. Doing the research is not our job. Even if it was our job, your statement ["...someone who really believes that and only listens to sources that tells them what they want to believe" SIC] effectively communicates to me that if I were to do the research and found a source that disagreed with your arguments, you would simply dismiss it because you think we would only produce biased evidence in our favour and ignore all else.

If you can't be bothered to make a real effort in a discussion, then do not bother posting.
 

Aardvaarkman

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Therumancer said:
The question of course comes down to how many of those physical, boxed, games are actually real. More of a side point than anything, but bootlegging is another whole issue here, and Australia is a big market for bootlegged asian goods.
No, that isn't the question. I'm talking about authentic product sold by long-established retail chains (Target, Big W, K-Mart, etc). They aren't fake at all, they have proper warranty, etc. Yet they are cheaper than the non-physical versions.

You really seem out of your depth here. Australia actually isn't a big market for bootlegged physical products. Anybody who wants to pirate stuff knows to download it via Bittorrent or whatever, they generally don't buy their pirated material on a burnt disc from some street-seller. If you knew anything about Australia, you'd understand that we generally don't have those kind of markets. It's a highly gentrified country, with most of the commerce being run by large companies who have to adhere to much stricter laws and regulations than most countries. Somebody selling bootlegged game discs on the street would be arrested by the police quicker than you could say "Crikey, mate."
 

Therumancer

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EvilRoy said:
[

If you can't be bothered to make a real effort in a discussion, then do not bother posting.

Not quite, the point is that everything is out there, it's not like I'm bringing up some kind of obscure information from a secret website hidden behind 12 firewalls run by The Australian Illuminati or anything. It's all mainstream news, general information type stuff, combined with things that people have been saying continuously for years before it becomes inconveinent.

The bottom line here is quite simply that, people in Australia, don't want to pay the prices they are currently getting on goods, and for all intents and purposes do not care whether there might be reasons for the prices they pay, just that they feel they are being screwed and should get lower prices, and to hell with any other point of view. They might be right, but I think there is more to it than that. I'm mostly getting flak for people hearing things they don't want to hear, not because I'm actually wrong in any real sense, especially seeing as in absolute terms for me to be wrong, the people I'm argueing with would likely also be wrong in having provided a lot of the basic information that contributes to this. People seem to forget that while I mention having dealt with some Aussies I played MMOs with, I've also mentioned very specifically the general range of complaints and comments made before an issue like this comes up.

See, if it was down to having gotten information from just one or two people I played an MMO with, in most cases I wouldn't bother to mention it. This is more than that, being the analysis of trends and a lot of claims over a period of time, combined with very basic common knowlege stuff.

At the end of the day the bottom line is nobody wants to accept that there is a lot of truth in what I'm saying, and might even be predicting the outcome correctly (though with Adobe backing down it seems unlikely), as a result nobody wants to see the facts involved, and isn't going to bother to do the research. As a result it really doesn't matter if I was to take the time and load up hundreds of referances, because people would STILL argue with me and deny it because it isn't what they want to hear.

Case in point, you more or less conceded the sources, but in order to argue with me your pretty much saying that the entire breadty of news information I could probably have when it comes to business in Austalia is wrong and biased simply because it contridicts what you want right now. I mean think about exactly what your premptively dismissing on a subject like this and exactly how that makes you sound. "well yeah, a ton of published experts probably agree with you, and not many with me, but that just makes them biased". If it was a more politically charged issue like gay rights or something that kind of arguement might actually hold weight since it enters into an entirely differant arena, but business news and comments on markets and such tend to be pretty striaghtforward.

Truthfully, I'm just going to let this drop. I'm not even likely to be a jerk when you or someone else posts a message later reinforcing some of the things your argueing with me about on another issue, which I know is very likely to happen, because as I said, I didn't decide to just start posting here to enjoy the glory of my own text. If I wasn't pretty confident of where I'm coming from, I just never would have responded to the thread, or tried to offer an alternate point of view and informed guess of how it would play out.

Basically it's a giant game of chicken at the moment. Austalia thinks it's position and infrastructure shouldn't cause goods to inflate in price in their market. The companies involve disagree. The big question is whether the companies will deem Australia profitable enough to deal with lowering their pricesin the long run, or abandon the market. Who needs who more. I think Austalia has overestimated it's position and when all is said and done it's going to wind up regretting this for one reason or another. I could be wrong, but we'll see how it plays out. Even if I seem wrong in the short term, I kind of expect in the long term Australian gamers and techies will regret the goverment ever having drawn this line in the sand.

In the end we're not going to resolve it here. We'll see where it stands in a few weeks anyway. As I said, I could be wrong, and that wouldn't be a bad thing. But I still think there is a good chance my analysis of the situation will be pretty close in how it's going to play out.
 

MagunBFP

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Therumancer said:
Snip because there are several posts where I have factual and practical evidence that you're wrong
Mate, I want to point out a few facts here, so you may want to skip my reply... especially seeing as you're convinced we're done because I disagreed with your opinion.

1. If your sample size of Aussies is less then 5,000 then its a small statistical sampling, and given that they were all gamers with most probably in a similiar socio-economic situation you are likely not getting the whole picture... and to infer the whole picture from say just the edge of the puzzle isn't going to give you much insight

2. The news programs in America aren't exactly know for hiding their bias, I've watch Jon Stewart and Colbert but that doesn't mean I know enough to comment on the idiocy of rejecting Obama Care (ie Mitt Romney swearing to repeal it in his first day in office)... well besides the fact that the US is the only first world country without universal health care, but thats a topic for a different thread. As a curiosity, who did you vote for in your election?

3. The internet debate thing... you're correct this isn't a major debate, no one is forcing you to state facts or references, but that doesn't mean you should know what you're talking about and who the fuck cares about your news clippings or recordings? Google it. I know I do when I want to fact check something. If you prefer not to fact check anything then rejecting facts that people provide (and I mean hard facts, not opinion) on the basis that it must be bias because it doesn't agree with what you've heard or believe unquestionably is stupid, adjust your theory based on the available evidence.

4. You argue that physical distribution of fakes is more prolific in Australia becasue of our proximity to Asia, surely that same proximity would make distribution of legitimate products just as easy to get to us as well. Bootleggers aren't exactly the type to spend more money then they need to get to a good market. Also compare a population of 23 Million to a population of 313 Million, the US maybe further away but you have 15 times the people to sell illegal good to and you do lead the world in minor crime... so perhaps you should look in your own backyard before calling us convicts again which leads me to...

5. You said your opinions weren't racist but if anything would actually cultural bigotry. Well sir you are a bigot, you are racist in your views of Australians and whatever you want to call it it is offensive. I don't judge all Americans by your red necked hicks I kindly ask that you do me the same justice and actually find out something about Australia that isn't just heresay.
 

ResonanceSD

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WWmelb said:
Therumancer said:
One massive snip

Somehow, new games on steam sometimes cost more than retail in australia.. go figure that one out. Apart from setting up software to be location specific and to regionalise pricing (which is done for every country), there is no reason for it. Except gouging.


Edit: And your subtle racism about us wanting to preserver our "rustic" way of life can go suck 13 cocks down it's own throat. We aren't backwards fucking hicks.

Excellent post! The price of games on steam makes absolutely no sense given that you get less "stuff" for your dollar, and publishers keep trying to charge ridiculous prices for old games. Look at the MW/MW2 pricing on steam right now.



Also apparently Therumancer has seen Crocodile Dundee recently and thinks that's how we all live here.
 

ResonanceSD

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Therumancer said:
Australia is a big market for bootlegged asian goods. A lot of the counterfeits look almost exactly like the real article and can even in many cases get online to networks at least for a while, which is half the problem (game companies complaining about stress on their servers coming from products they never actually sold, especially if they wound up having a keygen hacked so a foreign manufacturer can make access numbers).

What? I'm sorry, have you ever actually been here?
 

KelDG

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MagunBFP said:
rapidoud said:
This post is aimed at but not limited to anyone who responded to Therumancer, I would like to thank you for being right and let you know your posts are appreciated.

You are right, Therumancer is wrong. This person is either a troll or a bit dim. Everything they say is inflammatory and designed for a reaction. They will never respond to a legitimate counter argument. In their mind they are right and you are wrong.

I see many people trying to have a debate with this person and there is no point, they could be in a room with people telling them they are wrong but in their mind they would be right and it would be everyone else that was wrong, even if presented with evidence (as seen in this post).

So, be happy that everyone else agrees with you, I certainly do, along with everyone else responding to this troll. Don't bother feeding it any more, it cannot have a coherent argument (ie only picking out 1 point in your riposte and ignoring the rest of it, and usually a point that has little or nothing to do with the debate at hand).
 

Evil Smurf

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Aardvaarkman said:
Evil Smurf said:
that's why I use steam and eBay for games. Fuck spending $90 for a Wii game. I can buy two nice bottles of burboun for that, or 5/6 of a concert ticket
$45 for a decent bottle of bourbon? You obviously don't live in Australia. A good bottle of spirits is going to cost you at least $60. A great bottle of spirits is going to cost around $90 to $150+. The game will give you many more hours of entertainment, too.
Okay, what bottle do you buy then? and Where? I suggest buying at Dan Murphy's or BWS.
 

Shamanic Rhythm

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Therumancer said:
At the end of the day the bottom line is nobody wants to accept that there is a lot of truth in what I'm saying, and might even be predicting the outcome correctly (though with Adobe backing down it seems unlikely), as a result nobody wants to see the facts involved, and isn't going to bother to do the research. As a result it really doesn't matter if I was to take the time and load up hundreds of referances, because people would STILL argue with me and deny it because it isn't what they want to hear.

Case in point, you more or less conceded the sources, but in order to argue with me your pretty much saying that the entire breadty of news information I could probably have when it comes to business in Austalia is wrong and biased simply because it contridicts what you want right now. I mean think about exactly what your premptively dismissing on a subject like this and exactly how that makes you sound. "well yeah, a ton of published experts probably agree with you, and not many with me, but that just makes them biased". If it was a more politically charged issue like gay rights or something that kind of arguement might actually hold weight since it enters into an entirely differant arena, but business news and comments on markets and such tend to be pretty striaghtforward.
Are you still beating this dead horse? Let me make this crystal clear. No, there is no truth to what you are saying. Several posters (read: Australians) have told you that you are wrong in all your assumptions about Australia. Case closed.

If you are seriously wondering why people have responded with such umbrage, let me explain how you keep coming across. "All those people who live in Australia are just biased because they want to pay less! They won't accept the fact that their first-hand experience and knowledge of life in their country might not be as credible a source of information as my ability to follow the American media and glean knowledge from playing WoW with a few Australians!"
 

Shamanic Rhythm

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ResonanceSD said:
Also apparently Therumancer has seen Crocodile Dundee recently and thinks that's how we all live here.
You mean we don't all have a backyard like this? I'm the only one?


Come to think of it, no wonder it costs so much to ship a game out here. They have to hire mercenaries to fight off the crocs as they approach the Gulf of Carpinteria.
 

triorph

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MagunBFP said:
Little Gray said:
The thing is though that information is not really accurate. The average wage in the US is massively skewed because of the 1% in the US. If you eliminate them from both countries you will find that that average skyrockets. Hell your minimum wage is two to three times higher then that of the US. The reason you pay more for goods in Australia is because you make more. Its as simple at that. Its the same reason that a game in China or Russia does not cost the same as in the US. Different countries get different prices based on their situations.
So because I'm Australian that makes it alright to charge me more? Just because I'm richer then you? So if a guy walks into a store looking like a bum and buys a cheeseburger, then a guy in an expensive suit walks in and buys a cheeseburger it would be fine to double the price just because the suit has more money?
Did this guy even read what he was replying to? He goes and says this point about the wage in australia being higher as though we didn't think of it, even though the posts he was replying to not only said a) that we have heard this point, but more importantly b) that NZ has worse GDP than US and much worse than australia yet we're saddled with australian prices. Obviously there's more going on here than "they have more money so we'll charge them more."
 

EvilRoy

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Therumancer said:
EvilRoy said:
[

If you can't be bothered to make a real effort in a discussion, then do not bother posting.
Not quite, the point is that everything is out there, it's not like I'm bringing up some kind of obscure information from a secret website hidden behind 12 firewalls run by The Australian Illuminati or anything. It's all mainstream news, general information type stuff, combined with things that people have been saying continuously for years before it becomes inconveinent.

See, if it was down to having gotten information from just one or two people I played an MMO with, in most cases I wouldn't bother to mention it. This is more than that, being the analysis of trends and a lot of claims over a period of time, combined with very basic common knowlege stuff.


Case in point, you more or less conceded the sources, but in order to argue with me your pretty much saying that the entire breadty of news information I could probably have when it comes to business in Austalia is wrong and biased simply because it contridicts what you want right now. I mean think about exactly what your premptively dismissing on a subject like this and exactly how that makes you sound. "well yeah, a ton of published experts probably agree with you, and not many with me, but that just makes them biased". If it was a more politically charged issue like gay rights or something that kind of arguement might actually hold weight since it enters into an entirely differant arena, but business news and comments on markets and such tend to be pretty striaghtforward.

In the end we're not going to resolve it here. We'll see where it stands in a few weeks anyway. As I said, I could be wrong, and that wouldn't be a bad thing. But I still think there is a good chance my analysis of the situation will be pretty close in how it's going to play out.
Your response is pretty interesting in that it responds to a bunch of stuff that wasn't in my post. I can't tell if you're blithely trying to avoid the actual content and intention of what I said, if you're arguing with an imaginary opponent, or I was painfully indecipherable in my writing and that's why you're so confused. If the most former was the case then I will try to avoid it happening again by being as clear as possible.

I've not said anything with regards to the debate as to which side I agree with, beyond pointing out that as of yet you are 0 for 3 in terms of factual correctness in this thread so far. I've clipped out everything in your post that doesn't seem to apply to mine.

The problem I have with the first and second paragraph can basically be summed up with the question "what general information/common knowledge?" You reference it, but never describe it. Its as though you're saying the only possible logical conclusion that could come from this information is yours (more on that later) and we therefore don't need to see the information. You mention a long term analysis of business news, trends (trends of what?) and claims (claims by who? and about what?), but I can't find a single article that underlines or illustrates the conclusions you're drawing or the themes you talk about.

Paragraph 3:
I do not understand what you mean by "conceded the sources". Normally that would mean that I initially resisted the validity of your sources but eventually accepted them, but no where in my post was that the case. I never denied that Newsweek, television and your friends exist, I noted that without actually providing the topics, stories, whatever you are referring to we have no way of telling whether or not the things you attribute to those sources are true, or can be logically interpreted from the information presented.

To put it rather bluntly, I'm not questioning the existence or validity of the Newsweek, television news or your friends, I'm questioning your ability to accurately and logically interpret the information that you attribute to them, and whether or not that information exists.

I'm sorry but I found the rest of paragraph 3 to be indecipherable.

In the end we're not going to resolve it here. We'll see where it stands in a few weeks anyway. As I said, I could be wrong, and that wouldn't be a bad thing. But I still think there is a good chance my analysis of the situation will be pretty close in how it's going to play out.
No, it won't be resolved here indeed. I actually have to agree that your analysis will be pretty close to how the situation pans out, because your analysis basically states "because of vague reasons, the Aussie Govt will buckle" and since the only two options are [Govt buckles] and [Govt doesn't buckle] you have a 50% chance of being right.
 

ResonanceSD

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Shamanic Rhythm said:
ResonanceSD said:
Also apparently Therumancer has seen Crocodile Dundee recently and thinks that's how we all live here.
You mean we don't all have a backyard like this? I'm the only one?


Come to think of it, no wonder it costs so much to ship a game out here. They have to hire mercenaries to fight off the crocs as they approach the Gulf of Carpinteria.

And the knives they have to buy those croc-hunters are huge too.
 

Therumancer

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EvilRoy said:
[
Your response is pretty interesting in that it responds to a bunch of stuff that wasn't in my post. I can't tell if you're blithely trying to avoid the actual content and intention of what I said, if you're arguing with an imaginary opponent, or I was painfully indecipherable in my writing and that's why you're so confused. If the most former was the case then I will try to avoid it happening again by being as clear as possible.

I've not said anything with regards to the debate as to which side I agree with, beyond pointing out that as of yet you are 0 for 3 in terms of factual correctness in this thread so far. I've clipped out everything in your post that doesn't seem to apply to mine.

.
I have gotten into the habit of simply omitting the irrelvent of things that I've already covered. I'm basically not going to get into "is so, is not, is so!" five year old shouting matches on the internet. If I've already stated something I know to be correct, and the issue is a matter of you not having done the research, or trying to dispute something simply because you don't like it, I'm not going to sink to that level and will simply focus on what's
relevent to move the discussion forward.

Case in point, the second paragraph I actually posted above, your making self-justified assersions that there were "0 out of 3 factual statements" which is simply hyperbole on your part and pretty much taints the validity of anything you have to say, especially when I'm this confident in my own information.

I'm not the best typist, but the bottom line is that the arguements I'm generally dealing with are akin to "Well you don't know any australians for this information" I point out that I do then it's like "well, those Australians don't count!". I point to the fact that a lot of my positions are based on what mainstream business sources have been saying on the subject, but "that doesn't count because they are all biased". Your basic arguement is tantamount to a bunch of people who are cheering for the possibility of getting cheaper goods, wanting to dismiss any implication, by anyone, that maybe, just maybe, the reasons for their high prices aren't as straightforward as they would like to believe.

Followed of course by a couple of people more or less on your side insinuating that because I don't agree with you, and am not going to dismiss what amounts to a lot of well entrenched information (that is acknowleged to exist no less) on the say so of a bunch of people on The Internet.

I mean it's fine that you disagree with me, your entitled to do so. I stated my opinion on the article we're talking about, you disagree with it, and that's fine. We're not going to agree. But constantly attacking me, my information, the media, and really a whole heck of a lot of stuff, is pretty out there, and yeah... I generally haven't been stooping to that level. There is no point in argueing specific points with you, when you've pretty much alreay said that any source I could produce would inherantly be biased simply because it disagrees with you. If your that insanely convinced of your own righteousness, and really there were saints with less faith apparently, WTF am I supposed to say to you when I disagree? Why even bother... and that my friend is why I have been trying to leave it at "agree to disagree" and withdraw from the conversation, because really, nothing good is going to come of it, you have by definition declared anything that disagrees with you entirely irrelevent, there are some subjects where admittedly that can apply, but this is not one of them. To put it frankly if Australia was so unapproachable and the rest of the world so ignorant involving it, it's affairs, and trade with it, right down to the businessmen occasionally talking about the market (from the perspective of making money, not from politics), we wouldn't be in a position where trade got to the point where we're down to bickering about the price of first world luxury goods and conveinence devices which in the big picture are about as irrelevent as something can be.
 

MagunBFP

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Sep 7, 2012
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triorph said:
MagunBFP said:
Little Gray said:
The thing is though that information is not really accurate. The average wage in the US is massively skewed because of the 1% in the US. If you eliminate them from both countries you will find that that average skyrockets. Hell your minimum wage is two to three times higher then that of the US. The reason you pay more for goods in Australia is because you make more. Its as simple at that. Its the same reason that a game in China or Russia does not cost the same as in the US. Different countries get different prices based on their situations.
So because I'm Australian that makes it alright to charge me more? Just because I'm richer then you? So if a guy walks into a store looking like a bum and buys a cheeseburger, then a guy in an expensive suit walks in and buys a cheeseburger it would be fine to double the price just because the suit has more money?
Did this guy even read what he was replying to? He goes and says this point about the wage in australia being higher as though we didn't think of it, even though the posts he was replying to not only said a) that we have heard this point, but more importantly b) that NZ has worse GDP than US and much worse than australia yet we're saddled with australian prices. Obviously there's more going on here than "they have more money so we'll charge them more."
I did read the post I was replying to... and in my understanding it pretty much says that because Australians make more then Americans (on average) we should be chaged more... and I quote

The reason you pay more for goods in Australia is because you make more. Its as simple at that.
So because I make more money (read: am richer) I should be charged more?

As far as NZ being charged more I'm pretty sure the minimum wage in NZ in alot higher then the US minimum wage, so although the NZ dollar is weaker you're still making more money individually the Americans, which was the reason given for people being charged more. That being said if the minimum wage in NZ isn't that much higher then I have no idea what justification they use to rip you off unless they just think you're as rich as Australia without doiong any research just like Therumancer has been.
 

bug_of_war

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Nov 30, 2012
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Therumancer said:
This is like watching a slow motion train wreck to be honest. The stupdity of American goverment and guys like Obama boggles me until I watch some other goverments in action. Given the censorship garbage, and their general lack of a grasp on technology and trade I think the Australian goverment should refrain on trying to make desicians on anything involving technology more advanced than a sharp stick.... I know some will be apaled by an outsider saying this, but I've heard other Aussies say the same thing on related subjects over the years.

The basic gist of the situation is this. I'm sympathetic to people who want cheaper luxuries, especially things I also enjoy like video games. A lot of the people in my WoW raiding guild were Aussies or Kiwis, from whom I grabbed a lot of my insights into the situation fro a number of angles. But to be brutally honest the "Continent Down Under" is still fairly isolated globally (there is no magical cure for geography until we have matter transporters), and a lot of the region's charm and what people want to preserve are the anti-thesis of technological development and a lot of the things that would make arguements like the one the goverment is going to raise meaningfully.

The bottom line is this, when it comes to physical products being shipped to Australia, you still need to load them onto a boat or a plane and bring them there. There is more to it than a simple question of the relative value of currency. The price of fuel, wages for crewmen, etc... all contribute, and like it or not with shipping companies (plane and boat) having problems, the rising cost of fuel, etc... combined with the weakened US economy and shifts in priorities makes bringing goods to The Land Down Under even more of a pain, and more expensive, than ever before. On some levels Australians are getting foreign goods incredibly cheaply due to positive global relations, given the
expense involved in physical trade.

When it comes to issues like digital good and the like, understand that it's not magic, all of that takes technology. You need a telecommunications infrastructure to upload, download, and distribute files. By many accounts Austrlia's internet sucks balls to put it bluntly, which makes it a pain for people doing telecommunications stuff to deal with. The goverment has little interest in improving it apparently, and given the desire to leave large parts of Austrlia with it's rustic, undevleoped charm, it means that it's a pain for private carriers to build and maintain things like wireless towers. If I've heard correctly the conditions in the major cities are far differant from the majority of the country and how it functions technologically when it comes to things like the functionality of internet and wireless services.

All of this means that people have to work harder, and spend more money and effort, to bring these kinds of goods and services to Australia. A goverment that (again if I heard correctly) that has no desire to prioritize investing in it's telecommunications and internet, has no business complaining to IT companies when their own pain in the arse policies lead to high prices.

When it comes to games and such there is also a flip side to this as well. Aussies, like people from Europe and such, seem to like to go off about their general lack of anti-piracy enforcement and the insanity of the idea of people going to jail for "stealing" a video game or whatever. I don't know how this works in actual legal terms, but I'm guessing there is some actually on-the-books precedent or protections here that lead to such confidence. Needless to say game producers probably aren't lining up to make their products and IPS availible in a country that pretty much gives free reign to steal what they bring over. That kind of thing probably does influance even digital prices, and if you were on the business side of things you'd probably think the same way.

The end result here is that I'll be very surprised if this ends well. People would like to view this as a powerful goverment calling a bunch of naughty, corperate, children to task and forcing them to change their behavior and be more generous. Sadly I think there is enough legitimacy here (even going by the aussies I've talked to, and their criticisms of goverment policy and electronic infrastructure) that there is no good way it's going to end. The big IT companies are not going to lower their prices under the current situation, and I can't see Australia actually investing in the kinds of infrastructure australian gamers and tech users have wanted for a long time, nor is Australia going to offer to pick up part of the tab as far as transport costs for the physical goods. Given what a pain it all is, if Australia puts it's foot down too hard it might just render itself too much of a pain for any potential profits that could be reaped. I see more potential for these companies to say "F@ck it, your not worth the trouble" and just refuse to do business under these circumstances, than any kind of massive lowering of prices on their good without major compromises from Australia. The most LIKELY actual outcome of this is going to be Australia making a big scene, nothing of note changing, but there being some bad blood that will come back to haunt everyone because at the end of the day big IT companies don't like being brought in for show trials, and being pissed off might very well come out in some "subtle" ways in their future trade.

I could be wrong, but that's my analysis of it. As I said, my initial impression is that like in most technology related issues, Australia's goverment(s) seems pretty bloody dumb and out of touch.

If Australia wants to do better here it needs to become more inviting. Pump up it's internet even to the rural regions, install far more cell and wireless towers to increase coverage along with the infrastructure to make maitnence less of a chore. Pass laws to protect foreign IPs and copyrights (even if it makes it so people go to jail), and perhaps cut some kind of a deal to cover part of shipping expenses for foreign trade. With the rising cost of fuel, filling up those planes and cargo boats is becoming even more expensive, is the Aussie goverment agreed to pay say half the fuel bill or whatever on incoming goods, it could then make a valid claim for those goods to be cheaper.
You're not entirely wrong about the points you've given, but there are a few things you need to get straightened out. First off, yeah Australian government isn't what I would like it to be. To be honest, they're kinda useless and have broken A LOT of their promises. Anyway...what you said about the cost of importing goods to Australia, yes it should bump up the price a bit, but in a study it was found that the increase from 60 to 100 dollars is roughly 30 dollars too much, especially when the Aussie dollar was well above the American dollar. So while I don't expect physical copies of products to be the exact same as Americas, it should be cheaper than what it currently is. As for the digital copies, there is absolutely NO reason for them to be marked up. While our internet speed is not great compared to other countries, it is definately not terrible. Onto what the government has done right is that they have set out this plan that has already started to replace all the cables with new and better cables that will make our internet speed and connection FAR FAR better. So yeah, it's not so much Australia having all these problems as it is Apple, Microsoft and Adobe being greedy and refusing to drop prices because they like the extra profit they get. I have no problem with companies making profit, but when they are specifically making it more expensive for certain countries regardless of their economic power, that is when I get pissed off.