Gaming is too expensive... in Australia.

[Saskwach]

Gotta watch out for those drop bears.
But on an individual level, if not on a whole-economy level, importing from the US is the sensible thing for Australians to do right now. Hell, we virtually signed away our culture in that extensive free trade agreement a few years back, so we shouldn't be having this problem in theory. That's what globalisation and free trade are all about: being able to get things from elsewhere if they're cheaper there.

When this happens customs usually becomes more vigilant in the application of import duties and so forth. I don't know where games fit into the goods laws exactly but people might want to be careful of getting stung bringing in too many games at a time.
And anyway, globalisation is only really about the free movement of capital and free trade has ...ehh...never really existed anywhere (except maybe between some very small places that happen to be very close together). Nobody else really wants anything to do with it, despite what they say, in particular no one big (a lot of small nations would probably think it would be great).
Games do generally cost a lot though and it does look like a bit of a gouge particularly when compared to other media like movies. The industry is constantly crowing about how massive it is these days and how much cash there is in it, but ask them why a game costs 3 or 4 times more than a DVD of a film that cost 3 or four times more to make and they give the usual whinge about being affected by piracy and things (yeah, movies have less problems with copying than games, sure). Console prices are even stranger as usually they're high to help cover the losses on making the units in the first place (although I've seen people deny this is the case although I can't really see it since for a long time a 360 cost a lot less than a PC of the same componentry, even if they'd overheat and die a lot). PC games are a bit harder to explain, but when I'm feeling cynical I wonder if they're not a great deal cheaper because publishers and others have decided it could hurt their huge console investment if PC games were too competetively priced.

Prices are so much higher because so very few games hit break even, ginormous prices or not. Those ones that do better than break even, though, do sensationally well. It's a made up figure to replace a forgotten one but imagine that the best selling one fifth of games make one half of the total games industry profit and you'll get the gist of it. This one fifth is essentially hauling the other four fifths with it. This little fact is also why it's hard being a small publisher or a lone developer. Get big or get out.
The reason for this is probably because no matter what games people who want to be cool say, games are still a mainly niche industry and the profit is made by choosing to pander to the hardcore or the casual. If you ask me, an industry that can only make money off Halo or Peggle and nothing much in between is "niche with a few promising signs".

 

[Muzz]

This is precisely the situation with film as well. You might have heard the term for the big blockbuster that carries the studio over the dozens that lose or barely break even: tent pole picture.

 

[Parasan]

See, this is why I abuse Steam... Aussie prices are way too high, I've seen some rare games
are more avaliable though. Good thing we still have freeware, I guess.

 

[Saskwach]

This is precisely the situation with film as well. You might have heard the term for the big blockbuster that carries the studio over the dozens that lose or barely break even: tent pole picture.

Yes but film manages this whlie still charging a much lower fee. Because more people will watch a successful movie than buy a successful game. Because games are niche, and expensive. It's a vicious circle really.

 

[Fire Daemon]

I didn't think it was that much over there... wow.

We payed $1000! dollars for the PS3 on launch. That comes down to about $950 US dosn't it. Well that is one hell of a rip off seeing as how the American PS3 is sold at around $500.

And I think the only people to blame are the game retailers such as EB games. There was a time when the Australian dollar was half the the american dollar (50c AUS=$1 US) and it was during this time (2001 I think) paying double for a game seemed reasonible. It was at this time that a N64 game reached to $60 max.

However 7 years later the Australian dollar has climbed to about around 90% of the American dollar (90c AUS=$1 US). Now you would expect the games to sell at much less then double the amount America has to pay. Now I have nothing against paying more for newer and better games then what we paid for in 2000, but come on is $120 bucks worth it? I think that the Game retailers have realised that many people think that paying double what America needs to pay is still the norm here and that by people wont care if thats what they believe is a fair price to pay for a game.

And the thing that gets me mad is that they get away with it!


Can someone please tell me how much it costs in america for other things like bread, TV's, bottle of coke etc so I can see if my idea is corect.

 

[jlaisbett]

The game industry is actually a lot more complex than most people tend to know about (I don't know it that well either). For one it's publishers that tend to actually release and distribute games and you will find in at least some situations that the publishers change across countries.

These cases result in pretty much no importing being done at all and each country distributes it's own stock of the game which in many cases can actually differ slightly (languages, copy protection etc.).

Some large companies actually distribute globally (pretty sure EA do) but I'm not sure if they actually distribute games locally in each country or just do it once and then export it out.

As a result of this exchange rate and import cost is definately not the only cost involved, it's also down to the costs of running a business locally so wages/taxes etc. all come into play.

The biggest factor here is that publishers pay developers ahead of time, since games these days can take a very long time to actually produce any impact the exchange rate does have will be several years behind the real time rate changes.

Console games cost more because they are actually a lot more expensive to create for the newer generations, hence the price rise. Theoretically this applies to PC games as well but they don't seem to be climbing in price quite as fast.

 

[sma_warrior]

One word mate - ebay!

Picked up COD4, Assassin's Creed and Oblivion GOTY edition for $80 each all brand new. (Plus roughly $5 postage each) - sure beats $110 retail.

Mind you, they're all for PS3 so not sure what 360 prices are like.

EdIT: I had Morrowind instead of Oblivion - so sue me for indulging in wishful thinking LOL