Why are price on Steam so different in Australia?

I dunno. Why does Vegemite cost more here than over there? Why is horse meat cheaper in Europe than here? Why does a Mercedes Benz cost more here than in Germany? Why is a gallon of gasoline in Venezuela only 6 cents?

WHY?!?!?!?!?!?!

Why do people whine about the prices for entertainment goods when there are other people in this world starving because they can't afford food?

I'd say it's a collaboration between both retailers/distributors (especially the bricks & mortar ones) as well as the publishers. Retailers want digital prices to be close to what they are in store because if they are significantly cheaper, no one will buy from them and they'll go out of business (or so they say). Publishers are happy to do so because they get more money out of us Aussies (not to mention Kiwis).

I understand that due to minimum wages and everything like that, our physical copies should be say $10-$20 more ($20 at the absolute max!), but I honestly wish this price gouging with DIGITAL titles would end. Even if digital titles undercut physical copies, there will ALWAYS be a market for them - eg. people wanting a backup copy, collector's editions etc. Retailers are just greedy.

I mean c'mon...you see CoD MW2 in Steam for $90 USD, and the US Steam Store charges only $20 USD. Even the retailers are selling it around $30 or so considering how old it is now. The least Activision could do would be to drop the price to match this, but nope, they like to fuck around with us and keep it at $90. Other culprits include 2K, Bethesda, SEGA, EA, Ubisoft, Deep Silver, Rockstar...Capcom seems to be one of the few AAA publishers who isn't greedy. Oh and Valve surprisingly isn't greedy either, at least when it comes to digital distribution of its games through Steam (on the other hand, its physical copies are published by EA....)

I think it's not only Steam eh? I watched some video once where this was addressed.. Don't remember where or much detail, but I think there was a time where Australia had some kind of very high tax on those so there was no other option than to jack up the price or barely make any profit, but later on this tax or whatever got lifted, however everybody figured out they can still charge a lot because customers are already used to that.

Much like situation where digital downloads cost the same as retail despite cutting off a lot of middle men, not mentioning physical materials and shipping.

The kangaroos keep demanding a cost of living increase on their wages.

There was that one time when The Sims: Medieval was for only 1$ in Australia.

Buy from places like amazon and then activate on steam .

Its the same reason that cigarettes and drinks are so expensive in here, there is a tax on games. And its not just the usual 10% gst its considerably higher. Be glad for this tax, firstly it shouldn't worry you because there have been no games worth buying in over 2 years now and secondly because all those aussies stupid enough to still buy trashy games are giving our government revenue which it would otherwise have to obtain through taxes on worthwhile things (or wouldn't have to pay off the budget deficit with/inject into other market sectors/spend on public infastructure).

it's simply because everything in Australia tries to kill you... also by killing your wallet.

Meanwhile, in my country, where a decent student meal with fried chicken, 3 slashes of tomatoes and...
http://k14.vcmedia.vn/Images/Uploaded/Share/2009/11/14/141109ATga1.jpg

This cost at 1 USD and you can get a free drink.(be it coca or pepsi)

And we have to pay at USA price.
And in Russia, a student meal cost around 10 usd+

World !

It's called economics.

Australia has a much higher average wage than most other countries, so things are more expensive, so the cost of living is higher and luxuries become stupid expensive.

Russia is on the low end of that spectrum, so it is the opposite.

Then there are places like Brazil where these things will become expensive because it is a rare luxury that is imported and taxed heavily so the corrupt government there can further line its pockets :)

P.S. Extremely simplified.

magic

There should be a petition!In India,I get games at an average price of 18 dollars,which cost 40~50 on steam(Metro,dmc5,tomb raider etc)

shipping costs, you're sending that email across an ocean!

in southamerica 25$ hue hue hue

you could move to cis country :P for sure you'd like the prices there :D

www.steamprices.com/au/topripoffs

Arbitrary price gouging. Same in New Zealand.

While some companies charge exactly the same USD price as the USA Steam Store, others see fit to gouge a bit extra from southern hemisphere customers. VOTE WITH YOUR WALLET.

cose the koalas stolen the different money

I asked this to Steam support once. They told me that it's game devs that make the price and Steam just uses it. I still think it's completely idiotic how the prices are ranged for different countries and currencies.