I have always found the pricing of steam games in Australia a little suspect, I would love to know how it is calculated, I wonder in the future will they be forced to show how they come up with the now abitrary (seeming) price. Maybe they should show a little list.
Your game costs - X
Your country taxes - Y
Misc - Z
Our cut is - Q
You therefore will pay - P
I dont know if this is a lagitimate part of this thread but please read so you can know wheter to be outraged at the prices of your games. (I also found a site doing this research that placed many other countries worse of than Australia, i feel for you columbia)
The Exampled Game
Call of Duty Black Ops.
according to this site http://www.steamprices.com/uk/app/42700/call-of-duty-black-ops
Costs
(I Did the money conversions with todays currencies.)
(US) 59.99
(UK) 39.99 = [US] 63.9920 (6% markup)
(Europe) 59.99 = [US] 81.2707 (39% markup)
(Australian) 89.99 = [US] 90.1700 (50% markup)
Now as an austrlian Sure i think this is bullshit. Furthermore i know it aint tax that they are marking it up for. We have a rather simple "Goods and Services Tax" of 10%, and it does not apply to importated "Goods and Services" that are under $1000. There has been a recent uproar by the department stores so we all learnt a bit about such things. So these games should not be being taxed more than 10% even if they were to be taxed which they wouldnt be....
What i can tell you is that the hard copies of the game, such as sold here by EB
http://www.ebgames.com.au/search?title=Call+of+Duty%3a+Black+Ops
are going for 98 australian bucks, (110 for XBOX, dont know what console games go for in america so cant compare)
(Australian Hard Copy) 98.00 = [US] 98.1960 (64% Markup!!)
(WOW our currancy is doing awesome atm btw... )
I think steam probably looks at all the other options that you have around you in your current location for buying the game... knocks a couple of bucks of that and sits back and watches the money roll in. I dont blame them, the Australian gaming consumer is violated by the retailer dickwolves everyday and doesnt do a thing about it. People complain about the markup, (50% wouldnt you?) but for us Aussies its actually a reasonable saving compared to the hard copy retailers [8%]. Consider again steam specials and australians are saving alot of money thanks to steam compared to retail prices. If it keeps consumers away from buying hard copies of games which are just creations emissions in transport and plastic cases and being sold to 2nd hand stores who are just dickwolves to the developers I am all for steam.
To the matter of this guy buying in america for eurpeans, i hope it happens more and that more people get banned, the more attention brought to the issue the better, if it forces steam to expaline themselves and these prices, will this issue not be completely solved?
But yea you may have noticed i just wanted to rant about the Aussie Markups...