$90 USD in Australia?

[lizardmech]

Space marine for PC costs $90 USD if I buy it from steam in Australia? Very disappointing. Is THQ going to increases prices here 10-20% every single year? THQ have sunk to a new low in regional pricing, not even activision try to get 100% markup by exploiting digital distribution region locks.

[Aquila]

**In before the "THQ is a demon corporation run by warp spawn that live only to feed on sweet, sweet Australian souls!"**
**In before the "THQ is justified for ignoring basic international economics because "**

There, I just saved us 40 posts worth of pointless trolling and 6th grade economics.

Let me bottom line this for you. The failure of international distributors and businesses to adjust to the rapidly appreciating Australian dollar is a widespread and well known problem. This is not just THQ, and it is in no way an attack on Australian consumers, so please don't take it personally. However, the magic of economics has granted you with an easy solution -

[I]Don't buy it in Australia.

It's obviously mispriced, so don't pay the wrong price. Buy it from an international shipper, or get it on ebay. In the end, your only power as a consumer is to vote with your dollar. Business executives will at first blame piracy or the economy or whatever saves their job, but eventually the AUD will either fall back into parity or businesses will adjust their pricing. It's economically inevitable. So save yourself some money and buy it overseas.

[Akranadas]

Pricing is due to Distributors paying extra to stock at retail outlets, steam also marks up to this price due to retailers having a grip on pricing.

Yes, it's annoying that we are told this is what we have to pay, and no; ordering from overseas won't do much to shift pricing, nor does our strong dollar make an impact on this.


My Suggestion, as a fellow Australian; keep an eye out on http://www.ozgameshop.com/ for Space Marine to appear on there, the pricing is significantly cheaper than what you will pay for it in Australia.

[Nouw]

Might want to add a few other countries to that list buddy. And as far as pricing goes, I'm not sure if they did it on purpose or to gain an increased profit. Neither can you so please don't claim that THQ are 'evil' or similar.

[smfte]

This is what happened to me and my mates with Red Dead Redemption. Day 1 $90 aud not interested and no sale. 8 months later DLC sounded interesting, main game dropped to $40 aud, 4 of us buy the game due to good reviews so it looked like a bargain. We all got the extra dlc's and 2 more mates bought the game. R* now has us looking at their games for genres we were not interested in.

If they believe in their product, surely they could make increased sales by volume, get people to buy earlier, or attract casuals with a lazy $40 price tag. Rather than price gouging a few loyal fans.

At $40 the game doesn't have to be that good for people to try, and maybe convert some mw3 buyers.

We also bought War For Cybertron in the 1st 2 weeks for $49 at jb hifi, so it can be done. We also ended up buying the 2 dlc's.

Get us in early at a good price, the word spreads and people end up buying the dlc if it's decent.

[Hand of Asur]

My Suggestion, as a fellow Australian; keep an eye out on http://www.ozgameshop.com/ for Space Marine to appear on there, the pricing is significantly cheaper than what you will pay for it in Australia.

I have purchased many games from Ozgameshop and have saved a small fortune. I have had no problems with purchase or delivery of games and you will be paying at least half price for most 'new' titles. The only problem, and for many this is a bonus, you will not get 'pre-order' bonuses or, in some cases, CE of the games. Will be getting both Ps3/Xbox version of the gmaes from Ozgameshop for sure. The game is not up yet, but it will be in short order no doubt.

For those Ozzies with a PS3 it is very easy to make a US PSN account and at least have some form of parity for DLC/Digital games costs. As with most of the posts, get your games online and save $$$. Boycott bricks and mortars! Corporations are going to charge what they think they can get away with. If Ozzie gamers keep buying games at inflated prices then they will keep going up regardless of the strength in our $.

[AWarGuy]

This is Australia, everything costs twice as more, I can see why people are driven into piracy and what not.

[Mac_Bug]

you also have double the minimum wage

[Hand of Asur]

We also have double the minimum tax....


Ozgameshop now has SM (standard) for pre-order BTW.

[Promythyus]

Yet again mac_bug spamming his "double the minimum wage" line. That's all well and fine. But what has minimum wage got to do with video-games, an entertainment medium? Minimum wage should be reflected in essentials for living, yes, but not for luxury items. Median wage is a much better metric to judge luxury item pricing against, and it just so happens that the median wages between the US and Australia are fairly close (to the effect of a $1-2000). Unfortunately, I don't have proper sources at the moment, but I've posted them multiple times before, replying to that exact same damn post.

Edit; As others have stated, ozgameshop is the way to go. As an aussie, I NEVER, EVER buy in our brick & mortar shops, they are an incredible rip off, and now days I'm even avoiding steam sadly.

[Mac_Bug]

Essentials for living includes utilities and rent, both of which are a cost to businesses, in addition to double the labor cost of a US brick and mortar store. When the majority of your sales comes from brick and mortar stores because the country has heavy internet usage restrictions and obscene s&h costs due to location tell me why it would make sense for a publisher to undercut their local retail partners and still expect to do business together.

[Promythyus]

Several publishers already do this, Codemasters have DiRT 3, a relatively new game, on steam in both the US and Aus for $50. EB Games have it for around $80-90 depending on the store. Fable III (MSFT), HoMM 6 (Ubisoft), Valve games, all the same. And these are only a few that I've picked off the front page of steam. If these publishers can sell for the US price on steam, what's to stop THQ doing so?

I wouldn't necessarily say a single publisher should do this by themselves (although some do), we need an industry wide change. Back when the AUD was getting 0.50USD, you could understand why the games were double the price. That is no longer the case.

Unfortunately, whilst publishers are getting away with charging us double, this will never change.

[Mac_Bug]

Actually I have no idea why Australia gets charged so much so I'm only guessing really. The reality is just because your dollar is at parity now doesn't mean other things are - the longer the supply chain the longer it takes to adjust and here in Canada we're only beginning to equalize on prices across the border, and you are still remote enough that you have your own little review board and possibly packaging requirements and a THQ Australia office to sustain. From anecdotal evidences I would guess even the game might be pressed locally in Australia as previously CoH or one of its expansions had some sort of amazing fuckup only in the land down under. If you want to push for console sales (which you can't offer over steam) then you can't price the PC version significantly less for a variety of reasons, one of which includes reduced pricing leads to public perception of inferior quality or whispers of greed.

If you can get it for much cheaper through this ozgamer place then by all means go for it, if they have much cheaper operating costs then may they make loads of cash and force the retail market to become more competitive.

[Akranadas]

Pricing is high due to inflated distributor pricing across all goods, not just video games.

[Nouw]

@AWarGuy

High prices is no excuse.
(For piracy. I just had to say that in Warhammer 40,000 fashion you see.)

[Hand of Asur]

FromFrom anecdotal evidences I would guess even the game might be pressed locally in Australia as previously CoH or one of its expansions had some sort of amazing fuckup only in the land down under anecdotal evidences I would guess even the game might be pressed locally in Australia as previously CoH or one of its expansions had some sort of amazing fuckup only in the land down under

I remember when Opposing Fronts shipped in Australia WITHOUT the main folder...thing would not load and Relic had to patch it two weeks later so we could just load the game. Fun times, fun times...well that was actually the main reason why I stopped buying PC games and bought a console. The funny thing is at the time I was thinking, well this sort of thing will never happen to console games. How wrong I was...

[AWarGuy]

I'll be getting Space Marine either on OzGameshop or Dungeon Crawl,but I want the pre-order content things though (puritey seal etc) but it costs $90-$100 in Eb games.