So, I'm still wondering, even now, why Steam don't sell games at prices which are fairly converted between currencies. Why is it most games on the Australian store are more expensive. Take the latest DLC example for Skyrim. Why is it we have to pay $6.49 when others only pay $5, for the same content, when AUD is worth more than USD? Also, with Steam, all shipping and extra costs to get the game to Australia are nonexistant, so why is this the case?

Isn't anything in Australia more expensive than any other countries in the world? I live here in Melbourne, I know it.

There are reasons for some things to be more expensive though. I could understand if games required extra shipping fees etc and retailers increase profits etc, but having it on Steam, basically online distribution requires no extra work, yet for the same amount of money earned we are paying more for equal content. It's almost discrimination seriously. I don't even know what policy make companies increase their pricing when displayed on the AUS store...

Even though this is a nice topic it really isn't a topic about skyrim.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=14

Actually, I did list Hearthfire, and it can be applied to Dawnguard and Skyrim when it first released as well. In fact, this discussion shouldn't be in the Steam forums because companies set the prices, not Valve.

Beth says to Valve that Skyrim costs 50$ and then Valve sets US price to 50$, EU to 50€, AU to 50$...

I'm not 100% sure on this though.

I would love it if that happened....but Skyrim was $90 AUD at launch, compared to $60 USD, and Hearthfire is $6.50 AUD compared to $5 USD. It's the same with the vast majority of games too. BO2 is launching at $100 AUD, $60 USD

You know, you should be thankful you get a fair price like $6.49, they don't do that here, they do whatevers good for marketing, everything here has to end in .99 so they bump up the price to $9.99 just because it sounds better...

Strange that it still work after +50 years. Thought everybody just rounded up the 59.95, anybody who can buy the game has seen it an million times.
58.40 or similar is probably better as you has to think.

Ok wherever you are it's even more unfair, but that doesn't exactly make the price here fair...I'm still paying more for equal content. Worse still the currency exchange is basically even, so it's a straight increase in price.

I think the same thing when I see that magazines are more expensive in Canada than here in the U.S.
I think it has something to do with Currency Conversion Rates.
Like a Pound in England doesn't necessarily translate to a Dollar in U.S. currency.

Same here, our dollar is even stronger then the americans sometimes but they still overprice everything to us so they can make more money...

Well yeah, obviously But I have taken that into account already. For example, 1 AUD = 1.xxx USD, so the difference is marginal at best. So technically speaking we should have the same price tags as US people (at least on Steam).

His point being is that the Australian dollar is stronger than the US dollar, yet they have to pay more.

Edit: Bah! Ninja'd by the OP.

One would think, and I'm all for fair prices, believe me. My wallet could use a little fairness now and again. But dem decimals, man. Banks and treasuries count every red cent.

I've been under the impression that Australia just wants to make it harder for people to get games there. Don't they have really strict censor policies?

I'm still really confused as to why the game is still $60.00 USD after 359 days after its release (Sorry if my math is off, I literally just woke up)

Not really, we have just about every game released the same as other regions, not a lot of censoring. Although the lack of 18+ rating here for games causes some games to be slightly altered (such as cover of Dead Island), but nothing is banned here.

Also, with the prices I'm not just talking about decimals. New games launching having a difference of $30 is quite a lot. Two people buying in Australia would equal three people buying in US, think about that.

Yeah its probably some sort of tax that the government of austrailia is putting on games in some feeble attempt to stop people from playing games.

Countries like to make retareded laws like that to protect use civilians from ourselves.

Its not much better here in Canada either, they're trying to pass a law in Toronto that will make it so chocolate bars and junk food get explicit pictures on them like our smoke packs have, AND they want to put a tax on all junk food so people will not buy it. its BS liberal crap, and they say its to protect ourselves. (either they think us people are so stupid we cant make choices for ourselves, or its just a money grab, either way its not good).

Its the same with our Dollar as well. Right now our dollar is stronger then the US (i actually think they're par right now, but its been fluxuation from stronger to par the last few years). But we still pay like 50% to 60% more for anything here that they have in the states because the government years back put a tax on all american products so we buy canadian instead.

Im sure its gotta be some sort of underlying tax or something that Australia threw on their video games or something.

You are paying the exchange rate (fee to convert your AUD into USD).

Well put it this way:

Bethesda spends about 4 years on a game. They release the game for 60 dollars, alright.

Now take a game franchise like Call of duty or Assassins Creed. They pump at least one game a year (if not more) and they charge 60 and sometimes 70 dollars a game. (hell on the PSN you can buy an edition of assasins creed 3 for 120 dollars, like jesus, The game better give me a BJ for that price)

Now if i was bethesda, and i spent 4 times the amount of time and work into my game, and then you see an assassins creed game come out every year for 60 dollars, id sort of be pissed, and i dont blame Bethesda for charging 60 bucks for the game a year later. Why should assassins creed make more money then Elder scrolls just because the game Devs are hacks that like to pump out sub par games?

If anything, we should be lucky that TES games arent 150 dollars when they come out, going off by what other new games come out for. (hell sports games are literally the same game every year with a new roster and they charge 60 bucks every year)

Tax doesn't make a game go from $60 to $90... That's 1.5 times cost. Tax isn't 50% lol

exchange rates aren't 25-50%.


Depends on the style of tax. "Sin" taxes (ones designed to try to punish people or make them turn away from a product - like in the US, on cigarettes; also, import duties, on products that a government is trying to affect imports of) can be quite high.

gah. hit Quote, not Edit

haha, yeah as Kiralyn said, Sin taxes can be really high.

In Canada, the Sin taxes on Cigarettes are somewhere in the range of 300%.(thats right, Smokes are about 4 dollars without tax, and 14 dollars after tax) So yeah, taxes can be any number.