Australian Steam Prices

[thesilentman]

...You seriously thought that Steam has good prices outside of sales? Lemme laugh harder for a bit.

Lesson- Don't buy through Steam except for sales. Stick to GoG.com or Green Man Gaming for the slashed prices.

Captcha- I think I am.

No captcha, I know I am right due to my psychic powers.

 

[The_Lost_King]

You don't have to leave the house to order something from the other website either.

but since steam has all ur info on it, its so much easier.

I can get up on steam's store and buy the game in the time it takes to get to the other store's page, and I can start downloading it asap.

This website has all my info on it too, so there's no real difference?
As I mentioned in the OP the only real differences are the following:
1. How long you'll have to wait for it to arrive
2. The fact that one is a physical copy and one is not

As for Steam not setting the price, that is irrelevant, they could change that policy if they wanted to, when their market can easily be undercut by a better business they should be attemtping to change things.

Why would they want to go through every game and price it.

Plus everyone know you only get things off steam if there is a sale. Otherwise why wouldn't you just go to amazon when it is usually cheaper there(unless your really want it on steam). Like I can get Alpha protocol for 5 USD on amazon or I could get it for 15 USD on steam. I could get Far Cry 3 on steam for 50 USD or I could get it on amazon for 35 USD.

 

[Rawne1980]

I don't buy new games on Steam.

To be fair, I only use Steam when the sales roll around.

All my new games and other games that are far to pricey to pay for digital download I buy from Amazon. Amazon is usually my first port of call.

 

[OpticalJunction]

You are aware that Valve doesn't set the prices on Steam, they just set the price to whatever the developers ask them to.

What you should be asking is why do the devs do this, and the answer is simple, because they know people will pay more to download a game on their pc instead of leaving the house.

Actually local stores are just as bad, I think Skyrim was like $90 when it first came out. Steam (or rather, the devs) are just matching the ridiculous local prices. It's a cycle of greed, and steam has within its power to break it by encouraging a standard rate, but they've chosen not to do that.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

Everyone should read this article. [http://au.gamespot.com/features/why-australian-game-prices-will-not-drop-6401518/?skipmc=1]

Short story: because they can.

Long story: For a long time before digital downloads, the gaming industry threw around a whole heap of shifting explanations as to why we'd pay $100-120 for a new release of a game that was fifty bucks in the US. Originally, it was the fact that our dollar was worth much less than the US dollar.

When our dollar achieved parity and actually became worth more than the US dollar due to the mining boom, prices didn't go down. Then, it was the "prohibitive cost" of operating retail stores in Australia. Anyone here with an economics or business degree should understand why that's retarded - if the AU dollar value is low, they charge more because the USD price equals a higher AU price. If the AU dollar value is high, they charge more because stuff like rent, shipping, wages etc. have to be paid in now-high AU dollars, increasing operating costs in USD. So regardless of whether the dollar is high or low, we pay a $100 AU for a game that costs $50 USD. It's lose-lose.

When people called bullshit on that, they said it was because Australian minimum wage laws (we have a vastly higher minimum wage than in the US) gave our consumer base more liquid cash to spend on games. Ignoring the fact that minimum wage laws only apply to people working minimum wage jobs, and the disparity vanishes once you get over $40,000 dollars a year, the reason why our minimum wage is higher is because there's no tip culture in Australia. In the US, it's practically mandatory to tip your waitress, and a lot of their income comes from tips. In Australia, nobody tips. We've just never done it, and we've never had to, becase we don't have a retardedly low minimum wage.

And when Steam and digital distribution came along and made things like rent, shipping costs, and employee wages totally irrelevant, the retail stores...said nothing, and kept charging us out the butthole. Because they'd always been doing it, so they knew they could get away with it, because we as consumers were used to paying a hundred bucks for a game for no reason. And Steam kept the prices up (Steam is cheaper than retail, but there's still a disparity between AU and US Steam prices) due to pressure from the publishers who don't want to upset the retail chains by letting Steam charge us for how much the game is actually fucking worth.

We're getting screwed because we've always been screwed, and we've never known what it's like to not be screwed. If you want a picture of the future of the Australian video game retail industry, picture a boot stamping on a gamer's face - forever.

 

[LookingGlass]

I thought it was getting better lately (with the exception of Activision with the CoD games), but then I saw that The Cave was $20 on Steam for Australians, and $15 for us on every other site that's just offering steam keys (GreenManGaming, GamersGate, GetGamesGo). At that stage, what's the point of raising the Steam price?

 

[Doom-Slayer]

My PC can't even play some games from 10 years ago. Operating systems update with at least as much frequency as consoles do and that plus quirks of new hardware can make old games unplayable.

Software exists so you can play games as old as DOOM or even older. Software exists like emulators so you can play basically any game on any old system. Theres always a way.

OT: Op..ya, Steam doesnt set sales prices, same with retailers. You want Steam to set a policy on being able to do that? You do realize they would be telling devs "We'd like to sell your product...oh, and you dont get any input in how much we sell it for..we decide how much to sell it for"

Cause thats a great way to do business and attract devs to your platform.

 

[Bvenged]

Assuming that kind of nonsense went down where I live, I'd go with the physical copy a sit would take me 2 days to download the bloody thing anyway, so Steam loses out on an advantage there as well for me.

But fortunately for me Steam is really cheap (mostly, this winter sale wasn't great and kept being undercut by other digital AND physical retailers), so when it take me 2 days via post or download, I just go with whatever's cheapest; though I prefer physical as I don't need to keep my PC on downloading throughout the night.

 

[Mark Benedict]

Perhaps there are things going on that we as consumers aren't privy to.

Australian Classification Board is a governmental entity, while Entertainment Software Rating Board is private. That may increase costs in Australia compared to United States. AAA games are in development for 3+ years, so Far Cry 3 started development when an Australian 18+ rating didn't exist, forcing them to modify the final product to even ship there. Lifetime support costs may be higher for Australia. As great as a whole continent to yourself is, telephone and data lines are expensive.

Developers and publishers presumably have a "we must ship X copies with Y profit each by week Z" to break even. Unfortunately, any extra costs must be passed onto the consumer.

I definitely agree that this situation isn't fair or ideal. I'm not saying any of these hypothetical reasons alone could cause games to be marked up 33%. While I don't live with it, I can certainly empathize that a 12 hour plane trip away games are released on time and at lower prices.

It could also simply be simple economics: there are fewer people in Australia, so to make a profit, game developers must set the price point higher. I'd sleep much better at night with the thought that this isn't the case.

 

[Voulan]

I had a small rage about this the other day. I went to preorder the Tomb Raider Collectors Edition here in New Zealand, which was listed as $210.00! In Australia the same package is at $127.00, and in the US the same package was only $100.00.

So explain to me, when the New Zealand dollar is not worth that much less than Australia's and our minimum wage is much less, that I'm having to pay over $100 more?

Seriously, I'm getting beyond sick of this. New games cost $130.00! I mentioned this to the TR community and they were shocked at the amount. Converting it into their own currencies still placed that price way over what they have to pay.

I know this isn't related to Steam prices, but the same thing occurs there too.

 

[RedLister]

Ive only brought new once on steam and that wasn't even a full priced AAA title. It was torchlight 2. I just wait for sales to get stuff i would like.

Also isn't Australia charged more for games nowadays? which isn't helping the matter at all either and is also ludicrous it applies to digital downloads as well since the game isn't physically being shipped across the globe by plane, ship etc

I personally would like to see games on steam charged cheaper then a boxed copy due to the companies involved not having to spend money on manufacturing a disk, a manual and a box and then delivery charges to your local high street etc. Nice to see savings passed onto the customer now and then.

 

[CorvusFerreum]

You are aware that Valve doesn't set the prices on Steam, they just set the price to whatever the developers ask them to.

[...]

1. Valve games have different price tags in different countries as well.

2. Valve could include a policy in Steam which does not allow for different price tags in different regions.

In europe there are similar issues because most publishers seem to think that 1USD = 1?. I really wish Valve would adress that issue, because it extents on sales.

Captcha: what for....... what for indeed....

 

[the clockmaker]

What pisses me off more than pricing is the release date thing. Not just for games even, music, movies
[/pissed that he had to wait for bitter drink, bitter moon] [/pissed that zero dark thirty still isnt out]

 

[Revolutionary]

Yeah It's fairly incongruous [footnote]By which I mean pants on head retarded[/footnote], But I still find that 70% of the time it's still better than the kings ransoms that the Australian retail stores charge. Also any misgivings I have about Australian steam prices are more than assuaged by steam sales.

Spoiler: Also It's not valves fault, blame the dickbag devs.