Poll: Why are US game developers ripping off the UK

[Thaluikhain]

Why is it that people in the UK are paying too much, instead of people in the US paying too little? C'mon, people, there's more money you can get out of the Americans.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Oh, the ironing. The topic is about UK game prices. Not about if it upsets Aussies to hear people in other countries complain about game prices.

Sure, and you've never been on a thread that had tangents before, right? Too much time ironing, perhaps?

Yes, I'm sorry. It's just that Australians complaining about everything was such an unexpected development that it caught me off guard.

 

[GiantRedButton]

Note that American prices are usually without vats, but the price difference is still higher then vats.
Your still getting better prices then continental europe though.
Infact i think they have the second best prices when it comes to western nations.

Nope. Price difference for games between euroland and the US is about 20%, which is also the VAT rate in most european nations.

(on second thought: I should check the exchange rates more often. We pay 35% more now, so we get slightly ripped off)

Ds games used to cost 40 euro in germany and 35 dollar (25.87 Euro) in america upon release. Now they are cheaper as most of them are pretty old. But you cant tell me that thats all 19 percent vats.
Though i see you already retracted your statement in an edit so thats fine. Its kinda confusing with exchange rates.

 

[GiantRedButton]

wouldn't the prices be related to the cost of importing the games to different countries?

Shipping is more expensive in the US, as the population is less dense there ad you have to drive longer.
Note that disks are pressed all over the globe, so yes this should make games in the us more expensive but they aren't.
Edit: Accidental Double post :/

 

[Sandytimeman]

I wonder what the costs of shipping are for a game? Shipping it across can't be cheap but on the other hand it can't cost THAT much extra.

 

[Woodsey]

You sure there wasn't a deal on in America?

And err, being Amazon, doesn't the price depend on the distributor that you buy the game from?

 

[xchurchx]

its because we have stiff uper lips
it makes us sound more wealthier than we realy are

 

[Squilookle]

Oh, the ironing. The topic is about UK game prices. Not about if it upsets Aussies to hear people in other countries complain about game prices.

Sure, and you've never been on a thread that had tangents before, right? Too much time ironing, perhaps?

Yes, I'm sorry. It's just that Australians complaining about everything was such an unexpected development that it caught me off guard.

That's OK, we forgive you. I hope we didn't crumple your shirt too much.

 

[twiceworn]

if it is the publishers marking the price up then its a marketing problem which means the standard "THEY ARE GREEDY" responce my question is if they ARE greedy why leave the USA cheep when they could make even more money if they put the price up to make it even with the rest of the world and they would even have a good excuse to do so and thus my question "why is US cheeper than anywhere else?"

 

[SuperRobot64]

Over here in Iceland , new games cost around 12000 Kr. When converted it's about the price of a 102 USD.

 

[vivster]

funny enough the uk imports are always cheaper that the german versions(and uncut)
it's just a thing the publishers do
and i mean games here sell very well so why not

welcome to capitalism dude
don't hate a part of a system of which you benefit

 

[Assassin Xaero]

I was thinking about this one night, but then I thought about something else... Do you guys make more than we do? The house I live in is maybe $100,000 and over in California, the same exact house would be $1,000,000. Plus taxes and maybe import rates...

 

[Voodoomancer]

I live in Iceland.

A game which came out months ago can cost the equivalent of 90-100 US$.

That's for the basic version. Heavens help you if you want the special edition.

 

[Voodoomancer]

Over here in Iceland , new games cost around 12000 Kr. When converted it's about the price of a 102 USD.

Ninja -,-

 

[Ciaran Lunt]

were ripped off buy american corporations if i'm buying something significant e.g. iPod i time it ti seeing american relatives just ordered a 32GB iPod from america with case etc for price of an 8GB on it own you get what you pay for though the most significant bits tax which funds schools and NHS although now it funds banking champaign. its also weak sterling which we all seem to stick to no matter how crap it gets

 

[Pyro Paul]

aside from these points there is also the changes a developer must make in order to change it from the NTSC to PAL encoding,

That was a long time ago. Modern consoles render everything in 720 HD and can scale back in hardware to any rez, if necessary.
On the PC this has never been an issue at all.

doesn't matter. encoding between the two areas are diffrent.
all that changed was the letters that describe each format.

NTSC = ATSC
PAL = DVB

 

[spartan231490]

i was recently serching amazon.com when stumbled across a game that i had recently purchased from amazon.co.uk and i was kinda shocked at the price $40, It may seem resonable on a glance but the uk price was £40 so i checked http://www.xe.com/ucc/ and found that £40 is $64 but that $40 is £24.99 and while i dont know just how accurate http://www.xe.com/ucc/ is i do know that the pound is worth more than the dollar and i had expected the US prices to reflect UK ones or the other way around. What i DID NOT EXPECT was for there to be such a big difference in the prices we in the UK pay for games the US get for a WAY cheeper price and i was wondering if there was a good reason for this some way to excuse the amount we pay so my points are two:
are we in the uk being ripped off by US game developers?
is there a good reason we pay so much more
any thoughts are welcome.
the game url if you want to check
http://www.amazon.co.uk/JoWood-Gothic-4-Arcania/dp/B002FGT59O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1297590226&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/ArcaniA-Gothic-4-Xbox-360/dp/B003BU3ZIU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1297590198&sr=8-2

Do you mean computer games? I don't know how much computer games are but we pay $60 for a console game over here. It's all about supply and demand, my guess would be that PC games have a lower demand in the US than in the UK so they can't charge as much.

 

[Blaster395]

The prices are higher in England due to the higher standard of living (read we can afford to pay more for luxury goods). Its very little to do with tax, its to do with what a country/culture can afford/is willing to pay for certain things.

Its exactly the same reason things cost more in London, than the rest of Britain, the people living there get more money on average.

minimum wage in the u.s is between 7-8 dollars depending on the state.
after exchange rate the average for uk is 9 dollars

and its that simple.

The average wage in the US is higher than in the UK. Food and other necessities are cheaper in the US than in the UK. This means that people in the US have more disposable income to spend on video games.

 

[veloper]

aside from these points there is also the changes a developer must make in order to change it from the NTSC to PAL encoding,

That was a long time ago. Modern consoles render everything in 720 HD and can scale back in hardware to any rez, if necessary.
On the PC this has never been an issue at all.

doesn't matter. encoding between the two areas are diffrent.
all that changed was the letters that describe each format.

NTSC = ATSC
PAL = DVB

The hardware nowadays takes care of it all. Zero burden on the game developers here.

 

[linkvegeta]

I think that it is nonsense games should be the same price where ever you go. Its not fair for someone to pay more just because they live in a different county.