Pricing of Australian Games.

[Homeroids]

Those are all good reasons but there is another good reason why game prices are high in this country (Australia). Oligopolies. The ACCC has slowly been bringing change to the table in the form of allowing "grey" importing. They did this with the music retailers. The average price of a CD in Australia use to be $30AU. It is not uncommon and is almost normal to get a new release CD for under $20AU. What changed? The ACCC allowed mass importing of CD's from foreign sources.

I looked at opening a Sci-Fi book store. In Australia we have a limited range of Sci-Fi/Fantasy compared to in the US. For example, only recently was Brandon Sanderson's books published in Australia (he is finishing Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series). I had to import a few of his books.

I contacted US publishers of Sci-fi and was told they are not allowed to sell to me. The reason why is because of "regional copyright". In other words, they are maximising revenue streams by restricting supply of product to other regions. This protects local publishers with their various business structures. The side effect is that the consumer pays more. The local publishers will argue that it is due to economies of scale, higher basic wage in Australia, etc. But in reality, the price of books in Australia is unnaturally high. It's just wrong.

The ACCC is reviewing the "grey import" policy for books in Australia, just like they did for music CD's. The same emotional arguments are being raised by the Oligopoly such as, we need to protect local creativity and artists/authors. It's crock. Hopefully the ACCC will make the same ruling with books as they did with music.

Now, video games. A bit more complex but also many of the same issues as books and CD's. Firstly, games can be distributed to you electronically, yet we pay much more for that content. The vast majority of games are not developed in Australia so no loss to local "artists". The only group that is protected is the local profiteering distributors. There is not really a "regional copyright on games.

Basically the price of games in Australia is farcical, IMO.