Australian Steam Games Are About to Get a Flat 10% Price Increase

McElroy

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StatusNil said:
Now this is just blatantly Australocentric reporting! What about the poor people of Iceland, who get hit with a 24% increase? What did they ever do to deserve that? If playing in bands with Bjork is such a crime, only half of them ever did!

Source: https://techraptor.net/content/steam-prices-increasing-australia-due-10-sales-tax

(Yes, another example of rampant Australocentrism there as well!)
Yeah, I believe Iceland has had a tax loophole enabling this, not being an EU country and all that. Funny enough, on g2a.com you will select your sales tax rate from a drop down list of countries. I'm always feeling very Norwegian on that site for some reason :^)
 

pookie101

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ah its due to the upcoming gst law change where everything under $1000 will have gst added come that date. so not just steam every fucking thing.. grrr
 

DarthCoercis

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Hawki said:
DarthCoercis said:
let's see...

the rise/return of One Nation
They got 8% of the national vote, a large chunk of that on the back of preference deals that they did with a lot of fringe groups. That's still 3% less than the Greens. Hardly what I'd call a "rise". Pauline is like a cyclone. Pops up every few years, makes a lot of noise then eventually fucks off after doing a bit of damage. Her arrival is always overblown by the media, and has thus far amounted to absolutely nothing.

racist slurs written on toilet room doors at uni
A specific uni, I'm guessing? Hardly something you can use to tar an entire nation with.

coupled with how about 47% of Australians want a Muslim ban according to a recent poll
I saw that poll, and it got less than 900 people responding to it. That's not even remotely close to enough respondents to produce any form of usable or useful data, and any media organisation that used it to make any kind of declarative statement was... disingenuous, at best.

An addendum point to that: recently here in Qld there was a poll that said the majority of people in the state wanted daylight savings introduced. That poll had a smidge over 400 respondents, which is less than 0.014% of all eligible voters in Qld. Much like the "muslim ban" poll, the data from the dls poll is effectively worthless.

coupled with Australia having a history of racism (goldfields attacks on the Chinese, White Australia Policy, Aborigines couldn't vote until 1962, etc.), then, yeah
Show me a country that hasn't got a history of race problems. Also, none of this begins to justify your statement about Australia.

Pointing out racism and acknowledging it exists isn't the same as painting everyone with the same brush.
However, your original post attempted to paint the whole nation with a very broad brush. Your claim that Australia is "not that much of a nice country" is, frankly, wrong. Australia is not a racist country, though it does have its share of racist people. Not all of them are white, either, despite current internet beliefs.

To that, it is quite unnecessary for you to "point out racism". It's pretty obvious to anyone with half a functioning brain. Even those drongos who write or say racist stuff know they're being racist. You also do not need to "acknowledge" that racism exists. Everyone knows that it exists. You're not "Racism Man", gods-appointed pointer-outer and acknowledger of racism.
 

Hawki

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DarthCoercis said:
They got 8% of the national vote, a large chunk of that on the back of preference deals that they did with a lot of fringe groups. That's still 3% less than the Greens. Hardly what I'd call a "rise".
Rise, return, whatever, the word doesn't matter. One Nation has representation again.

DarthCoercis said:
Pauline is like a cyclone. Pops up every few years, makes a lot of noise then eventually fucks off after doing a bit of damage. Her arrival is always overblown by the media, and has thus far amounted to absolutely nothing.
Actually, I'd say Hanson fell silent for a long period of time before returning. Also, the riots back in the 90s (which were actually more driven by anti-Hanson voters) probably amount to more than a "bit of damage."

DarthCoercis said:
A specific uni, I'm guessing? Hardly something you can use to tar an entire nation with.
Macquarie, actually. And when did I "tar an entire nation" with it? I said "coupled." Racist slurs on toilets by themselves aren't a basis for anything.

DarthCoercis said:
I saw that poll, and it got less than 900 people responding to it. That's not even remotely close to enough respondents to produce any form of usable or useful data, and any media organisation that used it to make any kind of declarative statement was... disingenuous, at best.
I'd need a source on that. Looking up what I can, I've seen statements that over 1000 recipients responded, that the same poll was released twice in the same year, and got similar results both times. 1000 isn't definitive in of itself, I'll grant you, but coupled with everything else, coupled with the repeated results, I'd still find the results disconcerting.

DarthCoercis said:
Show me a country that hasn't got a history of race problems.
You do realize that's a falacious argument right? If all locations share the same problem, ergo the problem isn't worth discussing/addressing?

DarthCoercis said:
Also, none of this begins to justify your statement about Australia.
The original statement was "As someone who lives in Oz, I'm not sure if Australia is that much of a "nice country" these days."

Speaking of which:

DarthCoercis said:
However, your original post attempted to paint the whole nation with a very broad brush. Your claim that Australia is "not that much of a nice country" is, frankly, wrong.
So, not only are you intentionally misquoting me, but at this point it's coming off as more that I dared to say something non-positive that's the issue.

You're also technically the one making the assertion here, since my original phrase was "I'm not sure," same way I refused to make any declarations about Sweeden. But by proxy your claim that "Australia is not that much of a nice country is wrong," that does suggest that you are making the claim that it is.

You could make a reasonable argument for it being so, but talking about how great something is doesn't tend to be as productive as addressing issues. Just because the crime rate fell in King's Cross due to the lockout laws for instance doesn't mean that the police force stopped doing their job.

DarthCoercis said:
Australia is not a racist country, though it does have its share of racist people. Not all of them are white, either, despite current internet beliefs.

To that, it is quite unnecessary for you to "point out racism."
Uh-huh. So, if I ever see someone being verbally abused on public transport, or we get actual tar painting of an entire race/culture, I (and by your argument, everyone else) should just do nothing. I'm tempted to throw in a certain Edmund Burke quote at this point, but you already seem a bit upset already.

Also, I've never seen any widespread belief that racism can't be anti-white despite the occasional fringe claim, and I never made the claim in this thread.

DarthCoercis said:
It's pretty obvious to anyone with half a functioning brain. Even those drongos who write or say racist stuff know they're being racist. You also do not need to "acknowledge" that racism exists. Everyone knows that it exists.
Doing something bad, and knowing it's bad, doesn't change the fact that it's bad. If a criminal commits a crime in the knowledge that it's a crime, it doesn't absolve the act. If anything, it makes it worse.

I don't consider racism a crime per se, as long as it doesn't violate EEO (or similar) principles. Still, your line is just bizzare - at this point you seem upset that I've dared to say anything bad about Australia. You seem to take umbrage at the very idea of acknowledging that racism exists, when your very next line is "everyone knows it exists." So, it's okay to say a problem exists, but not okay to state that it exists. Uh-huh. Great line of thought.

DarthCoercis said:
You're not "Racism Man", gods-appointed pointer-outer and acknowledger of racism.
...the hell are you on about?

I'm tempted to joke that you're not Darth Vader either, but that's not going to solve anything. I'm also tempted to point out that I never once claimed a divine mandate or moral high ground, but that's not going to help either. All I can say is if we went from phrases such as:

"As someone who lives in Oz, I'm not sure if Australia is that much of a "nice country" these days."

To:

"Pointing out racism and acknowledging it exists isn't the same as painting everyone with the same brush."

To:

"You're not "Racism Man", gods-appointed pointer-outer and acknowledger of racism."

Then, yeah. One of those statements doesn't belong with the others. But in a (possibly vain) attempt to bring you around, I'll redirect you to the second quote and rephrase it as:

"Pointing out Islam has a violent ideology doesn't mean that all Muslims are violent."

"Pointing out that crime exists in (insert city of choice here) doesn't mean that the city as a whole is crime-ridden."

"Pointing out that women suffer from domestic violence doesn't mean that all men are thugs."

It's actually quite easy to discuss an issue, acknowledge an issue, and possibly work to alleviate an issue, without asserting that everyone is complicit with the issue.

Or maybe you really are Darth Vader and it's either blowing up planets or nothing, I dunno. 0_0
 

Worgen

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pearcinator said:
Makes it more worthwhile to buy off Gog.com now.

I need a reason to get away from the hellhole that is Steam and Valve's shady practices of recent years. Steam games were just...cheaper though. Gotta get the bargains. Hopefully now this will make it match Gog.com prices so I can buy from them :)
This sounds like a national tax on digital goods thing, gog might end up getting it too. While I really like gogs business practices, I doubt they will want to eat a 10% tax on everything... then again they do practice region free pricing so, I guess we shall see.
 

Addendum_Forthcoming

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Hawki said:
1) Are we in danger of being "swamped" by Muslims?

2) Has there been an upsurge of terrorist activity in Australia related to Islamic extremism?

I'd argue that the solution to both questions is "no." Again, Muslims in Australia make up about 2.2% of the population. Heck, there's more Buddhists living in the country (2.5%). I'm more worried about Islamic than Buddhist extremism (and yes, the latter does exist), but again, taking Australia in isolation, I haven't seen anything that would justify any of the extreme measures that some have called for.

Back in the 1990s, Hanson warned that Australia was at risk of being "swamped" by Asians. In the 2010s, ask yourself, has that happened?

Nazulu said:
As for the past, it's the past, and times have changed a lot, and every country has some horrible events throughout their history.
Okay, but the legacy of the past is still felt. There's far too many issues with Australia's Aboriginal population, ranging from the physical (life expectancy), to legal (constitutional recognition) to cultural (the Australia Day debate) to simply say "yep, all in the past."
Okay... for starters, while racism exists in Australia, it's important to put it into context. Hate crimes in Australia are going doen, and they werrn't high to begin with. Moreover what constitutes a 'hate crime' in Australia is far more comprehrnsive, and include far more groups under its representation than most of the West.

The problem specifically in Aboriginal communities is economic. Australia is the most urbanised society on Earth. On the least densely populated country on Earth. There is very few means to economically bolster private enterprise in many of these communities and many of the kids are just flat out better to simply leave these Aboriginal communities to look for work and further education in cities.

That's the only current means to get ahead since the end of the mining boom is going to Sydney or Melbourne.

So much so people call Australia a 'two-speed economy' ... continued growth in financial sectors, growth in legal services, etc. Market contraction of other big industry. This problem isn't restrained to Aboriginal land lease communities... but even once successful small trading and transportation hub towns tht once thrived off commercial enterprise by simply being in between variou heavy manufactory and farming sectors.

There are systemic problems. Calling it racism alone won't help.
 

The Rogue Wolf

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BX3 said:
Why does Australia's government hate fun so much?
The Australian government is concerned that video games are distracting their youth from important activities, such as going into the Outback and battling giant venomous spiders the size of cars.

I mean, it's like you WANT the giant venomous spiders to win!