Posts Tagged ‘Australia’

Sick of Australian distributors

Monday, June 21st, 2010

Okay, look, I’m still not over the Steam ripoff thing. (Although, with a cousin in London, I did find a way around it for long enough to buy L4D2.) In addition to Civ 5 (50 USD vs 80 USD) there have been a series of sales this week for EA titles which have (ignoring the ridiculousness of additional publisher-based DRM in a Steam title) been spectacularly offensive.

Take Sunday’s sale of Dragon Age: Origins. The 40% off “discount” price in Australia is 40% off the frankly absurd 70 USD so it’s 46.89 USD. Hardly a bargain. The standard, non-sale US price is 39.99 USD, so our “40% off” price is still significantly more than the US standard price – let alone the UK sale price of 13.39 pounds, which works out at 19.82 USD, somewhat less than HALF the Australian “discount” price.

For a digital download that is in all respects identical.

I get that publishers have to add GST to games sold in Australia, but the 10% GST is 10% – considerably less than 110%, being ten percent and not one hundred and ten percent. It’s not much of an excuse for the markups they’re imposing, is my point.

And that’s not even the worst example – according to the steamprices.com top ripoffs page, Steam charges USD 20 for Red Faction Guerilla in the US, but to those stuck behind an Australian IP it charges USD… prepare yourself… are you sitting comfortably? Good, then I will continue… USD 70. (That probably needs to be in a bigger font.) Yup, a markup of 350%. I mean, you’ve almost got to admire the sheer gall of THQ, don’t you? That kind of ripoff is a thing of such spectacular shamelessness that it’s almost thrilling. I’m not going to buy their game, but I might come back and admire its monstrous pricing structure next time I need an emotional shock.

Also, unbelievable regional pricing aside, there’s the issue of the ever more stupid delays in game releases here, highlighted by – who else – Nintendo Australia’s treatment of its flagship titles. Like Super Mario Galaxy 2, which won’t be out here till July. Despite having been released overseas a month ago.

My question is: what the hell is the point of Australian distributors, and why wouldn’t we all be better off if they just disappeared and the big retailers imported directly from overseas?

Feel free to share the examples of us being ripped off and screwed over that have really gotten your metaphorical goat.

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Steam region ripoff

Sunday, May 9th, 2010

Now I have a nifty PC that can run modern games, I’ve been exploring the convenience of the Steam store – PC games that’ll run without having to download a nodvd crack and disable your ability to play them online.

Only I’m in Australia, which means Steam insists on making me pay a penalty for many titles. Take Civilization 5, now taking preorders – they want $US80-90 from us (in US currency, bizarrely), where if they don’t manage to automatically detect your location and think you’re in the US the price is $US50-60. That’s right, we’re paying almost double for NOTHING. They don’t ship anything here, they don’t have any increased costs, the Australian distributor is not involved – so what the hell is the justification for robbing us blind? They’re even charging MORE than in the shops, for less – no packaging, no distribution, no middle men costs, but prices at retail level Australian dollar figures with the currency changed to the more expensive US dollars.

And whether we just blame the publishers for being discriminatory parasites, or assign some blame to Valve for giving them the tools to do it, the situation is both offensive and absurd.

Do they REALLY think we’re going to cop it? Do they REALLY think we’re going to pay double for no reason? Do they REALLY think that people who are considering handing over money are going to just bend over and take being ripped off so outrageously? There’s a reason Australia is known for high levels of piracy, and THIS SORT OF GARBAGE IS IT.

Screw you, Steam. Screw you, Valve. Most importantly – Screw you, publishers. If you’re going to treat your paying customers like this you deserve to lose sales to piracy.

If you have an IP product and you

  • refuse to sell it to people in certain countries;

  • refuse to sell it for particular periods;
  • refuse to sell it in particular formats;
  • insist on adding anti-consumer garbage like DRM that limits paying customers’ access to the content for which they’ve paid;
  • charge some customers more than others;
  • charge unreasonable amounts for content

…Then you do not deserve the protection of OUR courts, OUR governments. IP is not an intrinsic natural law, it’s something we the public grant you in order to encourage you to create. If you’re not going to live up to your end of the bargain, and enable us to access those created works reasonably, then why should we live up to ours? Why should we send the police we pay for to chase after your imaginary “property” rights? Why should we respect them at all?

I will NEVER buy a download game (such as via Steam) at a higher price than they’ll sell it to an American customer. NEVER. I may try to work around the restriction by using a US paying account and a US proxy, but if that doesn’t work I will not buy it at all. THEY WILL GET NONE OF MY MONEY. There is ZERO chance of me paying them more for less.

Get stuffed, you discriminatory arseholes.

ELSEWHERE: What a publisher that’s thinking straight does about “piracy”.

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