Australians Pay Sky High Prices For Digital Games

[oliver.begg]

Bit of a chicken-egg situation here. People are complaining of high prices, then the main body for the industry is citing piracy as a reason for the high prices. Who goes first, the companies lowering prices to more affordable means, or the people showing their willingness to engage legally?

I say companies, personally. But it needs effort from both sides.

a lack of respect and active screwing over, means they can suck me off before i pay the prices they want.

we have lower purcahing power then the US yet get overcharged, so LOL to me supporting price gouging

Just one question, how is the rating system enforced in Australia? You can still import games that have been refused a rating right?

you can. but why import

lets give a example

Civ 5 is 70USD in NZ/AUS
its 30USD by VPN from the US
its 6USD by VPN from RUS

its free off TPB (but no support so...)

i wonder i i buy it, which i will use, as the diffrence between countries over VPN is a click of a button, may as well save 64, instead of 40

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

I wonder if there's a way that someone from North America can buy the game off Steam and then gift it to the Australian?

My family lives in Oz, and they'll be here in Canada in a couple weeks. I'll ask them if we should set something like that up.

Its illegal if Australia has any regulation, fees, or taxes that the US doesn't have. Steam can ban you for it. Its the reason an American was banned for selling games to foreigners without the taxes and fees associated with their countries. Its seen as tax dodging, and steam can't afford to have foreign countries accuse it of helping people avoid taxes or breaking foreign law.

Umm... I'm pretty sure there aren't any taxes leveraged against digital overseas goods in Australia. There were a lot of news stories about how local retailers weren't able to compete with online shopping because tax doesn't apply to it.

Australians get US friends to buy steam games for them all the time, in the same way a lot of us import physical copies from overseas. It's perfectly legal.

I'm also completely astounded that we have a government body that seems to understand motivations of piracy. It's pretty cray, actually.

 

[oliver.begg]

But concerning the gifting thing, If oliver.begg is correct about there being no sales tax then you should be safe as long as the game wasn't refused classification of something.

umm nope, steam has threatned to ban people (both gifter and giftie) over this before.

espically when all the overpriced purcahses are made from the US to save

 

[SerBrittanicus]

Dont worry Australia if your game prices dont go up next gen we in the UK will be catching up with you in price terms since ours will be rising to £55 (almost 92 australian dollars). I dont know how much it costs to ship to Australia, but if people who live there do indeed buy games from UK stores as the article says that may very well be coming to an end next gen.

 

[Metalrocks]

most of the times retail version from the US cost less then in AUS.
well, what you expect from bureaucrats who have no idea about the real world and just focus on paper. all they see is money but never think outside of the box to actually do something about piracy. like cutting down the price.

 

[chikusho]

Couldn't Aussies just buy digital games on steam from third party vendors?
Like, greenmangaming.com ?

 

[lacktheknack]

Naturally the suppliers have a different take on geoblocking. "You would need to take into account the impact that [relaxing geoblocking] would have," says Adobe, "on organizations globally being willing to invest in the country and run a local operation employing staff and building an ecosystem that delivers inputs and adds value to the economy."

And those effects are...?

Seriously, if Adobe can mount a semi-decent defence of geoblocking, then we'll have something to talk about. If they're going to say "Consider the impact!" and not tell me what the impact is, well...

 

[GoddyofAus]

Australians Pay Sky High Prices For Digital Games

IT companies seem to have very little interest in addressing consumer concerns.


Naturally the suppliers have a different take on geoblocking. "You would need to take into account the impact that [relaxing geoblocking] would have," says Adobe, "on organizations globally being willing to invest in the country and run a local operation employing staff and building an ecosystem that delivers inputs and adds value to the economy."

Source: House of Representatives Committee [http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House_of_Representatives_Committees?url=ic/itpricing/report.htm]


Permalink

Uhhh.....There's one problem with that excuse, Adobe.


YOU DON'T DO ANY OF THOSE THINGS.

 

[shiajun]

I wonder if there's a way that someone from North America can buy the game off Steam and then gift it to the Australian?

My family lives in Oz, and they'll be here in Canada in a couple weeks. I'll ask them if we should set something like that up.

Its illegal if Australia has any regulation, fees, or taxes that the US doesn't have. Steam can ban you for it. Its the reason an American was banned for selling games to foreigners without the taxes and fees associated with their countries. Its seen as tax dodging, and steam can't afford to have foreign countries accuse it of helping people avoid taxes or breaking foreign law.

But isn't that the point on any gift ever? Getting someone something they haven't for themselves? Say I have a brother who went to live in Australia. It's his brithday and I know he likes X game series so I gift him the newest release. Are you saying I'd get banned from Steam for that? I get the tax reason behind it, but it just goes against the idea of a gift.

 

[RicoADF]

Its illegal if Australia has any regulation, fees, or taxes that the US doesn't have. Steam can ban you for it. Its the reason an American was banned for selling games to foreigners without the taxes and fees associated with their countries. Its seen as tax dodging, and steam can't afford to have foreign countries accuse it of helping people avoid taxes or breaking foreign law.

Actually gray importing (that is buying overseas and bring it over without paying tax) is legal here, it's only taxable if it's over $1000 AUD. The government has even encouraged it at times (for competition against the monopoly of the 1 supplier system we have for now). I've had a friend buy me a game and gift it to me over steam (L4D2), although that was to get the real version not for price reasons.

OT: So they claim piracy is why they charge so much yet they've always charged so much and piracy has only gotten worse. Hmm I wonder why people might pirate a game that's twice the price it should be, I don't know maybe if they lowered the prices...

Although to be fair games have gotten far better as of late. I can get a new game at retail for what, $70, at jb hifi. And I've lost count of the number of games I've gotten at nice low prices on steam, GoG, Greenman Gaming etc. Smart shopping can get around the crap, but I agree it's ridiculous and about time the government stepped in. Everyone knew it was illegal and it's been only a matter of time before enough people were affected for them to step in. Weather they achieve anything is another matter, but we shal see.

 

[Revolutionary]

Hurr we price discriminate because of piracy lol. Fucking dullards.
This is why I have to buy the majority of my games on sale or get it from a reasonable vendor.

Xcom The Beaurau - $72 on steam, $45 on GMG.

For those interested

Spoiler: this is a guide to paying less for steam games

http://coflash.com/steam/

captcha: narrow minded

 

[Shaidz]

Australia thinks it has it bad, here in NZ we pay anywhere from $100-$120nz for a new release game!!

 

[NinjaRock]

Strange. When I buy games through Steam I get the US price, no markup or anything. I just have to pay...US dollars, which currently stinks since the Aussie dollar is so low right now. But I'm not getting jibbed by a huge mark up right now...

The Australian Steam store is in US Dollars, but the prices are different to those of the US store. Normally we get charged more.

 

[seule]

Strange. When I buy games through Steam I get the US price, no markup or anything. I just have to pay...US dollars, which currently stinks since the Aussie dollar is so low right now. But I'm not getting jibbed by a huge mark up right now...

The Australian Steam store is in US Dollars, but the prices are different to those of the US store. Normally we get charged more.

Case in point, this past summer sale, certain games that we were charged a "sale price" of $17.99 in Aus were actually on the US steam store for $5.99. Suffice to say, I sent a buddy money on paypal, had him buy it at the cheaper price and gift it to me

Yes we get hit always, but there are ways around it, if you're patient, browse places like greenmangaming, have friends overseas willing to help, you can get around it, the issue here is, we shouldn't have to. There is no economic, physical, metaphysical, religious, fanboy or other reason that could justify it.

 

[Bvenged]

They cited piracy as a factor? Well no shit Sherlock! Australia has one of the highest percentages of pirated software BECAUSE software prices are extortionate and a game costs the equivalent of £80. Can you really blame them for stealing it instead?

 

[shiajun]

I wonder if there's a way that someone from North America can buy the game off Steam and then gift it to the Australian?

My family lives in Oz, and they'll be here in Canada in a couple weeks. I'll ask them if we should set something like that up.

Its illegal if Australia has any regulation, fees, or taxes that the US doesn't have. Steam can ban you for it. Its the reason an American was banned for selling games to foreigners without the taxes and fees associated with their countries. Its seen as tax dodging, and steam can't afford to have foreign countries accuse it of helping people avoid taxes or breaking foreign law.

But isn't that the point on any gift ever? Getting someone something they haven't for themselves? Say I have a brother who went to live in Australia. It's his brithday and I know he likes X game series so I gift him the newest release. Are you saying I'd get banned from Steam for that? I get the tax reason behind it, but it just goes against the idea of a gift.

That isn't want the American did. He sold the games without taxes using real money, and advertised he helps he dodge taxes. A gift is giving away a game.

Giving away is good.
Trading for steam items is good.
selling for real money and without any taxes to foreign countries that do have taxes is bad. It seems Australia doesn't have it though.

The moment you use mann co keys, bill's hats, and mac's heads however is the moment its not money, even though they are as good as money and can be redeemed as such.

So you can gift an australian.

Aaah, I get it now. I wasn't sure of what the situation was. Yeah, that seems kind of iffy, and clearly a way to circumvent taxes in Australia.