Games: What do they actually cost you?

[WWmelb]

Being an Australian, we seem to pay an exorbitant price for our video games here, with launch prices ranging anywhere from $80 to $120 for current gen consoles, averaging at about $100 on day one.

Given, this point of sale price includes all taxes and what not, so it is the price we actually pay.

I'm interested to know what other countries pay, what the list price is, and what you have to pay in state/federal taxes on top of the shelf price.

For instance i know the base price point for games in the USA is $60, but does that include your state taxes and what not? Or are they tacked onto the price at the counter?

And other countries, do they have taxes on top of their (unknown to me) base price point?

And i'm really only talking brick and mortar store purchases here i guess, as online would be different again i think.

So there we have it, as an Aussie, i generally pay about $100 for a day one console purchase, how about the rest of the world?

 

[Glongpre]

Wow that is way too expensive. It must be expensive to ship stuff to Australia?

In Canada it is 60 plus tax, so it goes to 65ish.

 

[DoPo]

I buy games digitally and mostly when they are on offer - I rarely pay more than £10-15 for a title. But otherwise, the "standard" prices (think $60) are £40 and already include tax.

 

[TehCookie]

The $60 US doesn't include sales tax, which is $.06 so we do pay more than the marked price. I'd like to point out the US economy is shit so depending on where you live. Using wikipedia's min wage for Australian it's $15.16 US dollars, the US's varies from state to state but the federal is $7.25. I'm not sure about Australia but the government also takes taxes out of that so in America you get paid even less. That's not even getting into the cost of living, since that varies greatly.

You can't do a side by side comparison of prices and expect it to be accurate.

 

[krazykidd]

Wow that is way too expensive. It must be expensive to ship stuff to Australia?

In Canada it is 60 plus tax, so it goes to 65ish.

Depends which part of canada . In Quebec ( the province i live in ) , we have two taxes . Federal and provincial . So for me a brand new shiny games costs 70$ . Our taxes is roughly 15% . Which sucks but what can you do.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

The standard price for a console release in Belgium is about ?60 including tax[footnote]That translates to about 85 aus dollar[/footnote].

 

[Foolery]

Yeah it's 59.99 in Canada plus tax. Which varies by province. Alberta only has 5 percent seeing as they only have a federal tax and no provincial one on goods. Which makes buying electronics here pretty sweet.

 

[Thebazilly]

I live in Washington state, we have a sales tax of 8.something percent (makes it easy to calculate tips, just double the tax amount). So games at a standard ticket price of $60 end up costing closer to $65.

 

[wintercoat]

Nothing!

All of the current-gen games I've played were gifts from friends and family. They're usually about $50-60. Oh! Except for Xenoblade. That I bought myself and it cost ~$60.

The older games I've bought recently were only a couple bucks each, which is why I tend to buy them instead of new games.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

In California I pay $60 plus about $4.50 in sales tax for a new console game at a brick and mortar store.

Then again, I can't even remember the last time I paid full price for a new game release at a brick and mortar (probably before the latest sales tax increase even). Usually I buy online, so I pay $60 flat, no sales tax and no shipping fees. Or I buy digital from steam, usually $50, no taxes, and free TF2 hats.

 

[FalloutJack]

Oh, you know, whatever the standard is in 'MURICA. Funny, I think I'm the first one from there in here.

 

[The_Lost_King]

It is $60 + tax in 'MURICA. Which comes around to about $65.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

$60 in America, taxes brings it up to around $62 or more. With minimum wage around $7.25, not counting income tax, that's a little less than nine hours of work.

Gotta take the working time into consideration, folks.

Otherwise it's all tax-free Steam stuff, usually costs less than $20, with most of the expansion packs included, and free Genuine-quality TF2 crossovers that are worth a good amount in the marketplace.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

Aussie here. I can generally get new release games for 60-80 dollars from JB HiFi. I don't buy many games at launch though.

 

[Miss G.]

Bahamian here. In case anyone wants to know, our dollar is on par with the American dollar. In The Bahamas it's 45% tax on top of the price plus what the importer thinks they can get away with and they can sell games that are years and years old without dropping the price. A Vita game is $40 US, in the Bahamas it's $58 if you bring it over yourself (and don't manage to hide it from Customs), $68 if you ship it over and at least $80 if you buy it from any retailer in the country. Sometimes a retailer can quadruple the price if the consumer doesn't know any better, like this store that will buy cameras from the US for $100 and sell them for $600-$800.

 

[anthony87]

Here in Ireland, back when I frequently bought physical copies from GAME I'd pay 45-55 euro on release. Only time it ever went the full 60 euro was when it was a limited edition that came with a steel case or something.

Nowadays I'm much more of a cheapskate thanks to Steam so at most I'll pay 30 euro for something without feeling ripped off.

 

[Smeggs]

Wow that is way too expensive. It must be expensive to ship stuff to Australia?

In Canada it is 60 plus tax, so it goes to 65ish.

That's pretty much the same for me in the U.S. as well.

 

[MrHide-Patten]

I import from the UK to Aus from Ozgameshop.com. So 60 bucks for new releases, sometimes less when there's a sale or I've got enough 'player points'.

Shipping is free and no added tax.

 

[FrozenCones]

As an Australian i'm outraged by the mark up on game titles. If you buy from EB games a new release PS3 title is (on average) $109.95. The last few purchases were from JB Hi-Fi where I buy them for 85-89. That said I noticed that the next gen titles sit at 120.00 (Watch Dogs placeholder price).

When i'm buying PC games I usually get American friends to gift the game to me via Steam and I either pay them through Paypal or in cash when I visit them. If not I make digital purchases off websites. I find you can shed off a few bucks when there is a lack of packaging.

I'm going to look into Ozgameshop for future purchases. My work colleague recently picked up BF3 for the PS3 with all the DLC for ~$60.

captcha: that's all, folks

 

[Roxas1359]

In California I pay $60 plus about $4.50 in sales tax

Hello fellow Californian.

OT: Much like Dirty Hipsters I have to pay State sales tax on my imports and my online purchases. Last year the only game that I bought that was released that year was Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance. All my other games that year were either imports, which are always new because I don't want a used import in case the disc is screwed up, or just older games that are too expensive to buy new. *glares at many PS1 titles*
Totally though I usually pay about $90 USD for my imports and I get them shipped rather quickly since I order on Play Asia. I don't really buy digital stuff because one I like have the physical disc and two my internet was never good enough to do so. Also I've been buying better equipment for my LPs and those usually go way higher than how much it costs for games.

I have always felt bad for the ridiculous prices that those of you in Australia have to pay though as it is utter BS, and combined with the fact that you get delays for so long.