Borderlands was released on Steam four weeks ago. Australians could buy it for $US50. A few days ago, it mysteriously vanished from the Steam Store. Now it's back...
And now it's priced at $AU80.
A 2K spokesperson explained the change:
“Unfortunately due to an internal error, Borderlands was briefly available for download on Steam for Australian users at an incorrect price. We have since reposted the game for the discounted price of AU$79.95 and apologise for the inconvenience.”
Discounted? Hmm. Sure, in store it retails for $AU89.95 RRP. But I'm not really sure how the new Steam price is a discount on the old Steam price...
UPDATE: Looks like we're still waiting on the Steam Store to update. Shouldn't be too long. It's up.
Comments
If the price comes back on and it's not back to 50 USD then 2k can go stick their backends over their nation's flag pole. I hope I don't end up regretting buying this game because I don't exactly want to be supporting any developer that's making a money grab.
Well it appears it is now on the Steam Store again but not at 79.95 AUD but rather 79.95 USD
I suggest they include a free weapon with the new price:
"The 2k Arse Reamer"
An underpowered gun, with small magazine, and over inflated price tag.
I'm sorry, if they want to get more parity with the Australian market list the prices in Australian fucking dollars.
Yeah, I was thinking of getting Borderlands before. No way now.
I bought it from Dungeon Crawl on Elizabeth St in Melbourne CBD for $69. Sure, had to wait until 5 days after it's PC launch, but if a brick and mortar store is cheaper than your digital distribution... I guess they think, like Sony, that you'll pay extra for convenience?
Me? I love my game cases + CDs. It's the backup I'd make myself anyhow.
These chumps can go get f**ked. Please I pray that people wake up and DON'T waste their money on this. People buying this and COD:MW2 and other overpriced games is ridiculous.
Actually, the reason we keep getting higher prices on non-physical goods is because the producers expect we are willing to pay them.
If you don't want to pay the price, don't buy the product. Import it (if its cheaper).
The prices here in Aus on steam are getting ridiculous, the price changes they are putting across: most of them are cheaper at EB and other stores, walk in at Christmas or mid-year and you have sale prices.
Though the publishers that don't do any high end profiting on their end we will still get a better deal with steam.
Remember with the importing of games at customs you still have to pay all the tax for it, the Australian tax not the external country's tax.
I just put a complaint into the ACCC as well.
I was lucky enough to grab borderlands before the price hike - thank Gawd! ...
That said steam has had some really strange pricing issues before - For example The COD4 pricing in Australia until recently was $89USD while stores where selling the game for 60-70AUD .. It's also widely known there are major price differences between the AUST and US store pages even though both are in USD currency and it's nothing to do with exchange rates.
The other well know problem on steam is the Region locking (2K been one of the compnies involved)... This region locking can have some odd effects: (I'm not sure if this is fixed now) when 2K on steam had a sale on the complete edition of Civilization 4 a while back as a weekend promo the only game that showed up in the package to us Aussies was the sword expansion and nothing else. You couldn't buy Civ4 sepreately as it didn't appear on steam to us...
I emailed 2K and steam at the time and both just point the finger at each other... just stupid! There are theories the publishers are going to force customers to go buy it in store for the higher over the counter prices we deal with here.
Still can't get over DA:0 been over $100 in store but about $60USD/AUS on steam...
Also with region locking on some store pages we might see a game but no price displayed... Just crazy ...
Would love to know who is behind the price fixing (and it's price fixing if one region is getting another price over the other that does NOT equal exchange rate) and the region locking...
Old news is old. Australians have historically paid through the nose for games, the change in price is more of an "oshi! we forgot we can gouge these buggers downunder, quick, send Steam and email, we've been screwing them for decades on game prices, cant let them get a deal now, they might start to expect it!" kneejerk realization that they listed it wrong, than an actual evil moneygrubbing scheme.
Suck it up, gamers in Australia have dealt with it for DECADES, its highly unlikely to change, so make a buddy overseas, and send him monies to pay for the game you want, and have it posted to you.
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