Steam Region Gouging - Name them and shame them

[Aegis]

I'm utterly fucking sick of the region gouging publishers are doing on Steam now. I propose using this thread to keep track of which titles are fucking us over purely because we're in Australia.

US                   AU                  Game

$49.99            $79.99            Civilisation V
$49.99            $79.99            Mafia II
$6                  $9                 Champions Online
$39.99           $59.99             Darksiders
$29.99            $69.99            Battlefield Bad Company 2
$59.99            $89.99            Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
$39.99           $59.95             F1 2010
$29.99            $79.99            Borderlands
$9.99                $12.99             Borderlands DLC
$89.97           $239.97         Borderlands 4 pack

*prices are all USD even though, you know, they can tell which fucking region we're in...

Let me know if I've missed any and as you notice more.

edit: ugh - need table support, any suggestions for tidying up this display so it's legible, rec?

[rec]

Table support is enabled in the CMS, but I can't see a way to enable it for forum posts... yet.

Bad Company 2 and Borderlands = ultimate gouging. That's ridiculous.

[Aegis]

ahh nvm the CODE blocks convert extra spaces to nbsp entities

[psyave]

so why do they do it?

even if they cant be fucked with the old exchange rate of 75 cents to 1 dollar, its still way off.

[Kawolski]

At this risk of making this thread redundant. Heres a site that keep track of the prices:
SteamPrices.com - Compare the different Steam Store prices

[Aegis]

so why do they do it?

even if they cant be fucked with the old exchange rate of 75 cents to 1 dollar, its still way off.

because they can. I think it was Bobby Cocktick from Activision that answered the question of Why - his answer was something like "because Australians are used to paying a premium for their games."

Kawolski, that's awesome +bookmarked now, but I want to put the big ones here in one list that's easy to skim through.

[chad]

From what I read about this, steam does not determine the price for region. This is up to the publishers that give steam the permission to distribute the game in a region. The publishers do their homework and they know how much Australians, Poms, Americans are willing to shell out for a game. You could say, it isn't the publishers fault but the naivety of most Australians not to shop around for a better deal.

For example, Crysis 2 Maximum Edition was for sale in JB HI FI for $19.00 without any DRM restrictions like steam. it was cheaper and available to me, but I rather choose convenience of having all my games located in a central location where if my 1TB hard drive dies on me I dont have to fish through a bunch of other distribution channels to re-install the same games again. So its either convince vs a bit of pain. You pic, is the extra %20 for games worth it for you, or would you rather go around and bargain hunt?

Its your call, though if more people like you started taking attention to the price fixing in Australia then it would push down the prices. Now if only people would stop buying assets or items in Big W or Coles with their freaken credit card and instead used physical cash you would see a reduction of prices overnight.

It's amazing how much asset prices in-fate when people spend money they don't own, and have no main intentions to repay it in the future.

[Aegis]

From what I read about this, steam does not determine the price for region. This is up to the publishers that give steam the permission to distribute the game in a region. The publishers do their homework and they know how much Australians, Poms, Americans are willing to shell out for a game. You could say, it isn't the publishers fault but the naivety of most Australians not to shop around for a better deal.

That's been evident from the start of the whole fiasco (note i even mentioned it in the opening rant). Valve have distanced themselves from the practice employed by 2K Games, Atari etc, which is ironic since Valve is the organisation that gave them the mechanism to set prices per region.

but yes, more people need to tell them to go fuck themselves. (within reason, I mean damn, I'm getting Deus Ex no matter what)

[UnSCaRReD]

BTW, the Civ 5 price is $79.99 USD in Australia, not $79.99 AUD - even more of a shafting!

[Aegis]

oh whoops, didnt realise i'd added a D to those two columns - yeah all the prices are in USD

[Harbinger]

well all steam prices are in USD, the column headings should just be AUS and US steam


I haven't bought any of these regionfucked games since I found out about it. Excluding getting it gifted from US.

[grandinferno]

regionfucked

I like you man.

[Jay]

So, Civ 5 for $79.99USD where you have to download it also, while you can get it from Big W for $74.96AUD. That's brilliant.

[Harbinger]

Just as a note they fixed the $53.95 price on F1


is $59.95 now

[Korny]

$239.97AUD Borderlands 4 pack

WTF got 100% markup on that or what

MOTHERFUCKERS