PRICKS! I buy on Steam because it's in line with the US prices. I'm not even going to bother buying this anymore, I'll just hire it from my local video store for a week for $18. >:(

Bastards. How on earth can they justify this? Especially when Steam means it's digitally distributed.

That is ridiculous, why would anyone want to buy it on steam if it costs more (you can get it for $80AU in stores), you dont get a box/manual and you need to use steam to activate it.

Shame Activision, makes a mokery of the usual publisher arguement that we have to pay more due to shipping etc. No seems like we have to pay more simply cause we are cash cows waiting to be milked.

It is this kind of BS price gouging that drives people insane. There is no valid reason to up the price from steam considering it is a digital distribution system with very low overheads, the price for digital distribution SHOULD BE AT A DISCOUNT to boxed goods purchased at a retail outlet.

If wholesalers/retailers in Australia would actually pass on the benefit of the higher Aussie dollar I would consider buying more games at retail outlets in this country, acts like this only serve to re-enforce my position that they don't deserve my hard earned and for now I will continue to purchase games from overseas vendors.

I've actually been buying alot of stuff from Steam over the last few years - because they're one of the few ways of getting a FAIR price on games in Australia. Why is something $88 in one region and $50 in another? Its not like they have to pay for shipping!

Criminal price gouging, plain and simple. Steam won't be getting any of my business in future if they keep this up.

What a bunch of price gouging f**ks.

too long have the games retailers here ignored the growing strength of our dollar and continue markup the prices on games ridiculously.

This reeks of price fixing and collusion from the Australian retailers and the off shore publishers to further rape our wallets.

there's my reason to boycott activision on steam.

i'll make sure to notify my steam friends too.

this is beyond appalling. there must be a way to counter this as consumers.

crap, did those new boycott laws come through yet?

Balls!

I import most of my games because of the insane prices in Australia. It's not like we earn 90% more than most people in the US.

What a joke.

I reckon this should be taken up by the ACCC cause this to me really smells of price fixing

This is not steam/valves fault.

Well, except for making their product able to discriminate based on where you live.

I'm sure Activision won't be making people who use steam in thailand able to buy COD 4 for $10/15/25 US, which is what they are used to.

At least THQ simply don't offer their program to Australia. It's less of a kick in the guts than offering it, withdrawing it, and then doubling the price overnight for AN IDENTICAL PRODUCT, which will cost the same AS A RETAIL BOX.

Of course, we know why, and that's because anyone from there who uses steam is giving them profit.

The only good side to this is that it's starting to mobilise the people into realising just how badly we are getting ripped off. The last game I bought at retail here was ETQW, it cost $100 AUD, complete waste of money, I've had to sell it for $50 because no-one is playing it online and the clan scene is dead. Activision game too.

I was going to take the money and get steam COD4 to play online, but why bother when I'll now get charged full price, and have to bear the cost of downloading the 6 gb files.

Now I will might pirate it to play the single player (if I can be bothered to download the behemoth 6gb files), and maybe if I can be bothered when it's on zest (in a month) buy it from there for the price of about $20 US.

LOL! Double price + 6gb download = Win

off to play-asia :)

This is bullshit, i brought it on the Xbox 360 for $109 and was gonna buy it on PC via steam to have even more epic multiplayer but screw that, i cant justify $200 total, $150 was bareable. Screw them, why does australia get shafted for profit.

This really, *really* makes me angry. There is no reasonable justification for doing this. Undercutting retailers? If they can't stay competitive, that's *their* problem, not mine! I'm sick to death of Australia getting screwed in pricing *and* getting screwed in when we're allowed to have things. I'm sick of us being treated like second class gamers because of where we live.

You know what Activision? Go to hell. You're not getting any more of my money. Ever. I know I won't personally make much of a difference, but hopefully there will be enough pissed off Aussie gamers to make them take notice.

Joining the angry mob here. I payed $50US for Cod4 via Steam and would not have spent a dollar more. The same goes for the Orange box. There is no justification for charging more than $50US for any single game on any platform. Looks like I won't be buying any games from Activision or THQ any time soon.

Why not send an email to Activision and let them know? I did. you can do so on their website at the bottom under "contact".

Bummer was, I was watching the price of CoD4 on steam cause I was hoping for a discount of maybe 5%. I guess I watched for too long.

Of note also is that the price for ET:QW rose overnight as well. It has a discount running atm, but the base price for Aus went from $49.95 to $57.50.

I am seriously hoping this is not a trend. Steam has always provided games at reasonable prices relative to the exchange rate. It is just in the last 3 months or so it has become a REALLY good deal.

I am interesting in getting Kayne&Lynch for it's co-op, and buying on Steam was the obvious choice. But I'm now wondering what it's price is going to be.

Maybe the idea is to buy it as soon as it is available in case the same thing happens.

Update from Steam forums. It's much worse than we thought.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7007538#post7007538

Apparently all prices on steam are in US dollars...
so...
the price for Aussies is actually 100 buckaroos!?
Get frikken real Activision.

Also part of the angry mob. I might also give a shout out to all the people on this thread who also refuse to pay Aussie prices on games.

The real question is can anyone tell me seriously if we would have a leg to stand on if we complain to the ACCC? If so could we set up a proforma letter for us all to print out and send?

I was about to buy COD4 on steam. Now I'll just buy it 2nd hand.

End result - instead of Activision getting US$50 - steam's cut, they'll get US$0 from me.

Plus, I'll now go out of my way to only by Activision titles 2nd hand.

Activision, you suck!

Sincerely,
Pissed off Aussie.

Well I must say I personally am offended at this price increase.

When I just signed on to Steam and saw the price I thought it must have been a bug, but then I read the forums and see the Aussies are getting ripped.

This is unacceptable on any level, no game should ever, ever be this expensive, AU$ 60 is the most I would pay for any game, and now being charged AU$ 101 for a game where you then have to download the files and the manual, there is no reasoning to it. I will only ever purchase stuff when it is fairly priced and actually is worth the price being asked.

And I was planning to buy the game next monday, not anymore, this is just plain profiteering.

If this is a sign of things to come I won't be buying Activision games online or instore.

Is it possible that Australians should be blaming their Government because of this? I mean, Why would Activision raise the price for the game just because they're selling it to Australians? They're mostly white people too just like Americans and Europeans. I think this stinks of the taxes your government puts on imported software. Think of how many hands are dipping in your wallet before you could even play a game.

How about American made candy bars in Australia? Are they just as overpriced too?

Play-Asia and Zest just got a more frequent shopper.

I cannot bring myself to buy anything at full retail anymore. Let alone pay full price and have to download it, at least retail you get the physical dvd and manual, then you can resell it later if you like, no reselling digital downloads.

I do hope that Steam\Valve do not have to do this with all their games, because that will be one less person purchasing anything from steam. There are alternatives people, just do a little searching. Play-asia is your friend there.

there's just no way to make me feel any better about this kind of corrupt and indecent violation, other than say, gathering up a mob and lynching or dropping the marketing manager of activision Asia-pacific/Australia of a high ledge and watching him fall, and continuing to do so until the regime changes.

at the least it's incompetence, at the most, it's patent, ostentatious greed that a company would do this without apology or consequence to customers who are going to be paying more to download games than to buy them from the shelves at RRP.

if it's more important to activision to have shelf sales, just don't sell your games on steam. just do what THQ did, hold your hands over your ears, eyes and mouths and pretend the internet doesn't exist for customers in australia. i konw Activision can be deaf dumb and blind to reality already, the catalogue of products they publish speaks for itself as does it actions.

the old expression, heads will roll feels appropriate, but it's not enough, a stand needs to be made in the way companies price their products, and it should not be dictated by companies who do absolutely nothing and expect things to stay the same.

I will never be an activsion customer again in australia, i will buy activision products overseas instead if necessary and there's just so very little you can do to stop it from happening before your competition and the consumers tears your company apart.

i can understand Activision feels that $102 AU is appropriate to the market, but who are they kidding here. you can go into a retail store and get this game for $80 or less from overseas, much much less in all cases. i felt it was too expensive at $50, now its just customer rape at $88.50

I' now gonna buy all my Activision games at EB second hand so they never see a cent of my hard earned cash

Doogan: Buying 2nd hand games from EB is for chumps. They buy the games for next to nothing and sell it back to the consumer $5 below full price. Play-asia is your friend.

what a joke, its probably some sort of agreement activision have with retailers to reduce digital distribution in australia (so retailers dont complain i guess)....as if anyone would pay same prices and then dl massive files. Thank you so much for pointing out play-asia, I never heard of that until now...

When physical medium costs less than a digital download, something is really screwed up there.

yer absolute rubbish!

Luckily i got it for $49.95 at the right time.

RIPOFF!

New Zealanders are getting ripped off just the same. I just logged in to see the same price as in Australia; $88.50.

Luckily, I got in quick.

/signed

I bought COD4 from play-asia. I even had it shipped express, And guess how much i paid? 55 AUD!!!

There's no way i'm paying STEAM for USD 80+ + additional 6GB download required. Hell no!

Lucky for those shops that sell the original games in ASIA. They'll be getting lots of customers :)

Activision, you make me sick.
This is not the way to treat your consumers.

If you're making a profit at US$50, then you're making a profit at AU$60 (roughly), it's called currency conversion. There is no need to sell at this ridiculous price.

Unless you're selling at a loss in US and recoup the money outside-US markets. While I highly doubt this, it does sound more logical than this non-sense.

This needs to blow up all beyond hell for them to regret ever doing this.

Just sent this to Activision Australia's "Report piracy" email:

Hi! Just a BIG THANK YOU for increasing your COD4 price on Steam to $88 USD for Australian consumers! You have NO justification for an increased cost, considering that the cost of distributing of your product via Steam is borne by the consumer.

You have successfully driven hundreds of outraged consumers to seek alternate sources for your product. Play-Asia, Zest will both benefit. And no doubt the pirates on bit torrent and other questionable p2p networks will observe an increase in demand.

Have a look at some comments of the customers you have lost here: http://www.kotaku.com.au/games/2007/11/call_of_duty_4_oz_steam_price_doubles_overnight.html

Good work!

-------------------------------

Now, in all seriousness, here's a Pete the Pirate Top Tip: Stop thinking your customers in Australia are idiots. They are justifiably outraged by your price gouging.

- An angry ex-customer.

All im gonna say is this is BS on Activisions part ETQW was out for a month and it got a price hike to was that a mistake? Unlikeley nice big fat lie there!

Yeah I bought ET:QW on Steam and it turns out nobody is playing and the game itself plays like nothing more than a MOD. I can't believe how badly put together it is. It's not even worth the US $49.95 I paid for it more like $19.95 because hardly anyone plays online it's worthless. 'Take the Data Brain'.. what are you guys THREE? What's worse is I can't even sell it and I can't take it back for a refund.

I was considering COD4 on Steam but not anymore. I had heard of Zest and PA before and not bothered but now I'll give them serious thought.

Good christ. I'm Canadian, and when our dollar was roughly where the Australian dollar is now, games were about $60-$70 brand new. This is insane. Games should not cost $100 for digital distribution, unless the exchange rate is horrid.

Was going to buy it off steam this week, but play-asia here I come!!!

Reply from steam about the matter:

Thank you for contacting Steam Support. We apologize for any inconvenience.

The correct price for Call of Duty 4 purchased through Steam in Australia or New Zealand is $88.50 USD.

We will not be able to offer you the US price. Please note that the pricing for this game is set by Activision not Steampowered Games.

If you have any further questions, please let us know - we will be happy to assist you.

Thanks steam, but I'll be buying the game with cd's etc at a local store for $80 rather than the $120 activision wants to charge us for a DOWNLOAD version

Why would anyone pay close to $100 australian to download off steam when you can buy it for $79 in stores, or even alot less of Play-Asia.

I do not blame steam at all this is not their fault, blame the greed of Activision. Sounding more and more like EA every day.

Lets bash em!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Steam could do something about this too. They could say "Screw you Activision, we're not charging people in different countries different amount for the same thing. If you don't like it, you don't have to distribute through us!". Thats what Apple did when the RIAA wanted to charge different amounts for different songs.

Ah, so that's what happened. I went in to Steam a few days ago planning to buy CoD4, then saw it was twice as much as all the other games and didn't buy it. I haven't been buying many games of late because I can't justify $100AUD for them, but being able to get stuff for $50USD off Steam has seen me getting a bunch lately.

So instead of this making me pay $100 for CoD4 in a bricks-and-mortar store, this made me buy some other game instead. Nice work.

EB games is for chumps. 120 for a game that they should be selling for 60 or 70. Plus the piece of crap that is 'pre owned' what a joke.

Anyways, I just checked out http://www.zest.co.th COD4 is 600 baht which = $21 AUD. Thats a massive difference.

if buying in a store, can the code be used to add it to steam? or not?

Just wondering, cause it works with some games, like valves own Half-Life 1 & 2 series etc, but it doesn't work for others like BIoshock etc.

Pincus, you hit high, ill hit low. Then we'll kick 'em while they're on the ground.