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

Steven Bogos

The Taco Man
Jan 17, 2013
9,354
0
0
Australian Steam Games Are About to Get a Flat 10% Price Increase

//cdn.themis-media.com/media/global/images/library/deriv/1384/1384283.png
As if games in Australia aren't already expensive enough, they are about to be subject to the country's 10% goods and services tax.

Video games in Australia are already considerably more expensive [https://www.steamprices.com/au/search/?preset=unfair] than their American counterparts, for almost no reason at all. I'm afraid it's only going to get worse before it gets better, as a new ruling from the Australian Government is forcing all overseas digital distributers to attach the 10% goods and services tax to their products that physical goods are subject to.

In an e-mail sent out to Steam developers, Valve stated:

The VAT tax amount will be included in the advertised price of your product, just like VAT is currently treated in the EU. This means the customer will pay the price displayed on the storefront, and the tax will be separated out afterwards.

While it is possible that publishers will simply adjust the price of their games to match the retail price and absorb the 10% tax increase, it's likely that games will simply get 10% more expensive when purchased via Steam.

The rollout of the tax is slated for July, so get your games before then!

Source: Kotaku [https://www.kotaku.com.au/2017/02/steam-games-are-getting-10-more-expensive-in-australia/]



Permalink
 

pookie101

New member
Jul 5, 2015
1,162
0
0
all its going to do is get australians to not buy directly on steam or simply wait for sales
 

BX3

New member
Mar 7, 2011
659
0
0
"Get fucked, Australia" -Australia

Yeah, this really sucks. Why does Australia's government hate fun so much? Seems like consuming any entertainment is harder over there. Games, internet, porn....
 

snintendog

New member
Apr 7, 2014
12
0
0
I say steam should just say F off Australia block them and release the steam DRM on Australian users. Open the flood gates for Australian pirates yar har fiddly dee. In all seriousness Australian government needs to just shut up and actually do something good for once.
 

MonsterCrit

New member
Feb 17, 2015
594
0
0
pookie101 said:
all its going to do is get australians to not buy directly on steam or simply wait for sales
You might have missed this line.
Steven Bogos said:
I'm afraid it's only going to get better before it gets worse, as a new ruling from the Australian Government is forcing all overseas digital distributes to attach the 10% goods and services tax to their products that physical goods are subject to.
Which means This will apply to GMG, origin, Uplay and pretty much every other digital retailer.

Heh heh, couldn't happen to a nicer country.
 

SlumlordThanatos

Lord Inquisitor
Aug 25, 2014
724
0
0
This is why people pirate. Whether it's being forced to choose between a slew of different streaming services (HBO Go, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc.), or having to pay ridiculous prices for games, making it harder to purchase digital goods just drives more and more people to piracy.
 

AzrealMaximillion

New member
Jan 20, 2010
3,216
0
0
pookie101 said:
all its going to do is get australians to not buy directly on steam or simply wait for sales
It hits Steam too.

If anything this is going to help out sales for Gray Market retailers who buy Russian Republic keys and sell them for less than official keys.
 

Elijin

Elite Muppet
Legacy
Feb 15, 2009
2,045
1,007
118
I mean, GST being correctly applied isn't the problem here. The problem here is that for no reason at all, retailers tend to double the price for this region. Steam is extra dickish about it because steam also refuses to allow the $AU in their market (Regional pricing, but refusing to let us use our dollars, means the regional higher pricer is in $US, and therefore gets marked up a second time in conversion.)

So yeah, for example, a major game like Fallout 4 is listed as 79.99, a pretty standard price for Australian stores. But its 79.99 USD, so its actually 104.02. Which is the pricing you only see in our gamestop equivalent (EB Games), to punish you for shopping there.

Getting mad over the items being correctly taxed, is like getting mad that the highway robber also took your scarf. He took your wallet first, maybe that should be a higher priority?
 

FalloutJack

Bah weep grah nah neep ninny bom
Nov 20, 2008
15,489
0
0
What exactly are we teaching our young Australians? This country was where they put all their criminals and people they didn't like. You're practically begging them to return to form to screw the retailers.
 

jklinders

New member
Sep 21, 2010
945
0
0
Ahhhhh Australia, never change. Whenever I want to whine about being charged too much for something here I can just remember that the batshit insane politicians here will never ass fuck me to the degree that they do to you.

For fucking real, are they against people keeping their money there?
 

Voxoid

Regular Member
Nov 28, 2013
61
0
11
This is pretty annoying, but nowhere near as bad as Sony's overpriced digital downloads...Yet...
 

Hawki

Elite Member
Legacy
Mar 4, 2014
9,651
2,173
118
Country
Australia
Gender
Male
MonsterCrit said:
Heh heh, couldn't happen to a nicer country.
As someone who lives in Oz, I'm not sure if Australia is that much of a "nice country" these days. :(

But yeah, this sucks. Whenever I hear people complaining about full priced games at $60...well, trust me, it could be worse. Though I think we have prices better than Brazil at least, so there is that.
 

008Zulu_v1legacy

New member
Sep 6, 2009
6,019
0
0
This is going to cause sales to drop off in Australia. I used to only get games when they were 25% or better off, now it won't be until they are 50% or better. Sorry devs.
 

ron1n

New member
Jan 28, 2013
401
0
0
Eh, Steam isn't a big deal. Never buy from there for the most part anyway since they've always been a colossal ripoff. Ditto for Greenman and GoG and all the other major sellers.

Going to suck if and when all the key sites like cjs and cdkeys and ozgameshop start charging it as well though.

The reason this came about was because local retailers here had a consistent giant hissy fit about online retailers not having to charge GST (as if that was the reason horrendously overpriced and terribly run local stores were failing lol). Oh and we have a draconian conservative government who initiated it.
 

LazyAza

New member
May 28, 2008
716
0
0
ron1n said:
Eh, Steam isn't a big deal. Never buy from there for the most part anyway since they've always been a colossal ripoff. Ditto for Greenman and GoG and all the other major sellers.

Going to suck if and when all the key sites like cjs and cdkeys and ozgameshop start charging it as well though.

The reason this came about was because local retailers here had a consistent giant hissy fit about online retailers not having to charge GST (as if that was the reason horrendously overpriced and terribly run local stores were failing lol). Oh and we have a draconian conservative government who initiated it.
You must have missed this part: "all overseas digital distributers"

Aka they're aiming to force literally every digital service that sells games to jack up the prices for our region. What's real stupid is the digital prices will probably still be lower due to how utterly fucked aus retail rrps have been for decades between the standard 80-90 prices and the 110-130 dollar special editions uh.

If the assholes running the damn stores would stop being so stupid and greedy this shit wouldn't be the way it is. Like they think oh we could lower our prices to get more people in stores but nah son lets go fuck up the competition instead, because that'll help. Bloody morons.
 

pearcinator

New member
Apr 8, 2009
1,212
0
0
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 :)
 

Creator002

New member
Aug 30, 2010
1,590
0
0
The source doesn't mention the AU government or that it'll apply to other retailers (so I'm not sure where the Escapist is sourcing this from). It's happening to other countries too. (Switzerland, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Iceland, South Africa, and India are getting it in March, for example.)
 

JohnnyDelRay

New member
Jul 29, 2010
1,322
0
0
Aren't Australian steam games already the most expensive in the world? The only thing I can imagine to be more are in England, but now with brexit, who knows.

Used to be an Australian resident, seeing every brand new game hit shelves at $99 gets old REAL quick.