A short survey piece over at GameDaily suggests US consumers are upset about $US 59.99 price tags on games. I don't mean to be insensitive, but they don't have a leg to stand on when you look at Australia, or even Europe.

The Aussie dollar might not be as strong as it was a month or two ago, but a US$ 59.99 game still works out to be ~$71 today. That's a far cry from the $99.95/$109.95/$119.95 prices we're currently paying.

Unsurprisingly, the survey found gamers are willing to shell out for triple-A titles:

Only 11 percent of next-gen console gamers said the price doesn't matter for "the right game." Among males, 25 to 34, a much larger group (30 percent) said they would buy the "right game" at full price. If you aren't publishing "the right game" then you are likely to find consumers hesitant to plunk down full price when a game first comes out.

Not that any of this matters to the informed gamer. One word: Play-Asia.

Consumers Still Hesitating When it Comes to $59.99 'Next-Gen' Pricing - Magid [GameDaily]

I often use the example of Activision doubling the price of Call of Duty 4 on Steam to illustrate how dire the "price of games" situation has become in Australia, but Andrew Ramadge of News.com.au has uncovered a better one:

... Gamers who visit the Steam and Electronic Arts websites are charged up to five times more to download popular titles like Medal Of Honour: Airborne -- which Australians can buy and download for $99.95, while users in the US pay just $21.15 ($US19.95).

But you guys already know how crazy the situation is. Thank [insert deity here] for importing, right?

Yes, we can import, but that doesn't mean everyone else should have to cough up the cash. And why should we be forced to look overseas in the first place? That just doesn't make sense to me.

It's unlikely prices will come down anytime soon - the publishers would vomit at the lost profits - so buying games will continue to be an online affair for us (minus Steam, of course).

The article also notes how the ACCC is powerless to do anything and, unsurprisingly, that none of the publishers were willing to talk about the problem.

Aussies paying five times more for software [News.com.au]