Australian Games in General

http://au.gamespot.com/features/why-australian-game-prices-will-not-drop-6401518/

I'm just, stunned.

Damn, Aussie.

Fucking hell.

*Hides uTorrent.*

This is why rule 58 was created.

I'd be concerned with finding out what precisely makes Australian publishers at such a disadvantage. It lists a high initial cost of producing a physical copy of a game, but how much of that is really transportation, I wonder? Is it a product of Australia being spread out as it is (in which case I understand; food is expensive here for similar reasons), or they're paying more for inputs, or because production is inefficient?

Producing discs is actually immensely cheap. Like, less than a dollar cheap.

BUUUUUUULLLLLSHIIIIIIIIIITTTTT.

The main reason would obviously be places like Kmart and target, but thankfully only the kids shop for games there. I would be at a loss as to what to do if my local Gametraders shut down. The game stores always have better customer service, and friendlier employees. And you get to trade games in.

Half of the games I buy are second hand, which is something Target or KMart would never allow. But, don't listen to my rant any further.

The article listed a vast multitude of causes for these trends, not just wholesale retailers.

Just something interesting to share: To buy the professional version of Photoshop online in the US costs $600. From the same website, but accessed from Australia, it costs $1200. This is something which is entirely digital, no physical delivery involved.

Exactly. If they decided to, digital delivery could price-drop even just a little and completely smoke out physical distribution. According to the article, the cause would be "cahoots" aka "good relations with the physical retailers." IMO, they're waiting for the physical price to drop before they drop the digital prices, because they can get away with it.

Russiaball wrote:

Producing discs is actually immensely cheap. Like, less than a dollar cheap.

Yes, but then there's getting them where they need to go. Evidently the transport costs are bonkers, but that's hardly the other $19.50 of the listed cost of the CD. How much of that is the case, the manual, distributed cost of the art and production of the game, marketing, etc. Because the per-CD fractions all of that have to be accounted for in the price assigned to each individual CD, in order to determine the final wholesale price of the game.

What I'm trying to say is, are they really being shafted by transport, or is there some other obnoxiously high cost that gives them grief?

LegionOfShadows wrote:

Half of the games I buy are second hand, which is something Target or KMart would never allow. But, don't listen to my rant any further.

If you're buying a game second hand you're honestly better off straight up pirating it- The game developers get the same money either way, and 'game traders' and the like are actively hurting the producers, and thus helping to lower the quality and variety of games created.

Not sure if any of you heard about this, but I only just found out myself.

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2009/11/whats-cut-from-aussie-left-4-dead-2-and-how-to-uncut-it/

And yet, EA got all three Dead Space games here on the MA+ rating, where dismemberment is a key gameplay mechanic. Oh well.

I'm honeslty not bothered about censoring the really gory parts. I'm not that kind of gamer.

Although I would like to note that Fallout 3 and New Vegas are a bit ton violent. Like, exploding heads and some very gruesome objects just lying scattered around at places. But... no censorship...

Indeed.