Maybe We’re Not The Worst Off When It Comes To Game Prices…

My wage was about $7/hr when I worked at Burger King in high school 10 years ago :(

Having been to Brazil, one of the things that drives up game prices is the massive taxes applied on games by the Brazilian government combined with two things.
1. The easily accessible black market where games can be purchased literally from the side of the road for only a few dollars (anyone who has been to a 3rd world country will know what I mean).
2. The low prices for games in countries surrounding Brazil such as Bolivia and Paraguay.

I remember when wages were $5-10 average and games cost over $100.
Fun times.

My complaint about game prices isn’t that they’re high, it’s that we’re paying in excess of $100 US for something that should be $60 US.

People in the US whine about games being $60 when that’s how much games have always been. We’ve had our games slowly creep up to RRP of $110 ($120 in same rare cases!) over the last decade for no apparet reason, as our dollar stands taller than ever against the US.
Granted, I seldom pay more than $80 because I tend to buy games at launch from JB when they’re discounted or wait for a sale, but I’m addressing the RRP point.

The issue isn’t with how much we could be paid at minimum wage, it’s the disparity with American prices when our dollar is currently superior, and it’s a huge difference. Whoever made the comic is an idiot.

My original reply I posted when this first appeared on Reddit:

Nice try, Activision/Sega/Electronic Arts/Bethesda/Ubisoft/THQ! Pity most Australians with common sense now import their game for $40-50 AUD because of our strong exchange rate instead of paying that slated $90 AUD, thereby undermining your local distributor’s sales which makes them mad enough to raise a shitstorm with you, sending you to a) local retailers to complain about the competitiveness of the online marketplace, ie. Gerry fucking Harvey and b) digital distributors to arbitrarily raise regional prices, absolutely fucking over your standing with a lot of consumers.

Oh and nevermind the fact that ten years ago we were paying ~$100 for games at retail and the argument from publishers, distributors and retail chains was that it was due to the poor performance of our currency (when it was dropping lower than $0.50 USD per $1 AUD) and now that our dollar is performing on parity with the US dollar, the excuse is that we shouldn’t complain because our minimum wage is comparatively higher and nevermind the expensive cost of living. No, it wouldn’t befit our burger flippers and waiters to complain about the unfluctuating price of video games that have remained mostly static for well over a decade.

Edit: downvotes away~! Won’t change the facts about retail chains struggling to cope with exorbitant price points, though. Fellow Australians: ozgameshop.com and EcoGamer are your friends.

To those saying that the prices have become fixed at these values because “Australians like to pay more”: Australians don’t like to pay more, which is a lesson many of our local retailers are starting to find out the hard way. Harvey Norman chain of stores have spent the last year or so complaining publicly about how the company has been suffering due to the swathes of people that are importing courtesy of our strong dollar instead of shopping at his overpriced, piece of shit stores. GameTraders have also suffered, closing many of their stores and rebranding themselves as an online distributor – oh, and they’ve finally started to lower the cost of their games by between $10-20 because SURPRISE SURPRISE they’ve discovered many Australians don’t like to pay more.