Cheers Gearbox for joining the Gouge Brigade!

[Darkie1337]

http://www.weplayciv.com/forums/showthread.php?5855-Duke-Nukem-Forever-pricing

Oh sorry, Title had sarcasm.

No not thank you Gearbox. A big middle-finger up for price gouging us. I refuse to buy this game when its an extra $27 USD just because I live in NZ. I actually haven't heard the full reason from a game developer on why they price gouge us. The other big " Price Gouging" thread I remember said something about Australian Laws. Except i'm not from Australia and their laws don't apply here.

Gearbox, I refuse to buy Duke Nukem Forever if you decide to gouge me. No. Thank. You.

[welsh_boy]

Its nothing to do with the software houses .. its more to do with import taxes and laws etc.

Take the UK for example .. cigarettes here are almost £6 pound a pack due to government taxes etc , you go to most other places in the world and you can get the same pack for a fraction of the price.

If you do happen to pick them up cheaper elsewhere and attempt to bring them back into the UK , if you have more than a tiny allowance you either have to surrender them to customs or pay huge import duty fees on them which end up making them cost the same as buying them in a UK store.

Yes the software house might have a tiny bit to do with it , but its more to do with your countries taxes and import laws etc so have a go at them instead.

[sMashPiranha]

Its nothing to do with the software houses .. its more to do with import taxes and laws etc.

Take the UK for example .. cigarettes here are almost £6 pound a pack due to government taxes etc , you go to most other places in the world and you can get the same pack for a fraction of the price.

If you do happen to pick them up cheaper elsewhere and attempt to bring them back into the UK , if you have more than a tinycô allowance you either have to surrender them to customs or pay huge import duty fees on them which end up making them cost the same as buying them in a UK store.

Yes the software house might have a tiny bit to do with it , but its more to do with your countries taxes and import laws etc so have a go at them instead.

wrong. we don't pay tax on steam purchases. it's entirely the publishers fault that nz gets ♥♥♥♥♥ on game prices.

[Tempest_Wales]

wrong. we don't pay tax on steam purchases. it's entirely the publishers fault that nz gets ♥♥♥♥♥ on game prices.

Yeah, but you're supposed to. But these things are the Publishers being [color="#FF66FF"]♥[/color][color="#FF66FF"]♥[/color][color="#FF66FF"]♥[/color][color="#FF66FF"]♥[/color][color="#FF66FF"]♥[/color] not Valve.

[C4Chaos42]

Yeah, but you're supposed to. But these things are the Publishers being [color="#FF66FF"]♥[/color][color="#FF66FF"]♥[/color][color="#FF66FF"]♥[/color][color="#FF66FF"]♥[/color][color="#FF66FF"]♥[/color] not Valve.

Nah-uh! Digital purchases from non Australian outlets are not taxable. :o

[Frugal]

Hasn't this been a problem among all publishers distributing internationally? I'm not sure why you're singling out Gearbox.

[AlHudson1]

[url]just because I live in NZ.

As far as I know NZ is far from everything (except Antartica and Australia) also is country ruled by extreme conservative people that hates videogames.

Quite frankly Brazil, South Africa, India or China are better markets than NZ (Sorry)

BTW is not Gearbox or Steam is 2K who has the distribution rights and they said the price in each region.

[gabor.lakatos]

check steamunpowered.eu and conversion in prices is terrible but someone from germany or u.k. coz rating restriction? maybe could buy it for u.

[sMashPiranha]

As far as I know NZ is far from everything (except Antartica and Australia) also is country ruled by extreme conservative people that hates videogames.

Quite frankly Brazil, South Africa, India or China are better markets than NZ (Sorry)

BTW is not Gearbox or Steam is 2K who has the distribution rights and they said the price in each region.

:facepalm:
Our government and geographical location has nothing at all to do with the price of videogames

[noobdeagle]

its because here in australia everything is overpriced and steam originally was same US price here until retail stores started complaining about them being undercut but digital distribution so rather than drop their ridiculous profit margins they lobbied the publishers to raise the digitally distributed prices and STEAM AU was born. :\

competition in retail space doesn't exist here more and more people are also buying all kinds of products overseas and our tax free threshold is $1000 so what do major retail chains you ask?

well instead of being more competitive they lobby the government to drop the tax free threshold down to $400 but this met massive consumer back lash that it never happened

so what needs to happen is for everyone to mass complaints and stop buying from these companies to force them to have fair pricing but that will never happen because people will buy it anyway.

so with this in mind .....get it gifted from the US or UK or import cheap boxed copies.

and when you think about it its kinda stupid considering that even with our tax added it wouldn't be this much more expensive.

whole situation makes me angry now if i see a game i want and it goes on steam for $50 i usually buy it before they hike the price sometimes they forget till later :P

[Darkie1337]

@AlHudson1 - Wrong. Our country doesn't care too much about Video games. Also, As Smash said, Our location has hardly any effect on the price of ONLINE sales. Retail? Yes, Shipping and handling, Store Percentage Profit etc, But Online? Hardly any extra.

From what I've read elsewhere, We're being "lumped with Australia" and their "import tax" Of course the blame is going around because we get Gouged on heap of games ( COD Series, Other major games etc ) and I refuse to buy a game brand new unless its a Valve game. Why? Because they don't gouge us. Portal 2 on steam is the same in the US and NZ.

I'm not targetting Gearbox also btw, I'm just making this topic because Gearbox / 2K / Whoever decided to price Duke Nukem Forever differently decided to gouge us.

As said, If there were taxes on games, Why can Valve sell us the game at the EXACT same price in the US and NZ? That makes no sense. Games like Black Ops have $20 USD just "slapped" on because I live in NZ / I live close to Australia. I'm just using Gearbox / 2k / Whoever as the newest example. The more we moan and the less people in our region who buy the game locally ( Either get a friend to buy it overseas or import as suggested ), Then they will see the game sold poorly here and they may start actually saying " Oh crap, They actually don't like us Gouging them!"

[ralphfromdk]

Oh will you Australians and New Zealanders just shut up about your games costing a lot of money compared to the US.

Do you know how much a new 360 / PS3 title costs here in Denmark?

100$

100 American Dollars.

So quit your whining, and just be happy with what you got.

[C4Chaos42]

Oh will you Australians and New Zealanders just shut up about your games costing a lot of money compared to the US.

Do you know how much a new 360 / PS3 title costs here in Denmark?

100$

100 American Dollars.

So quit your whining, and just be happy with what you got.

[QUOTE=ralphfromdk;22822863]

You're quite welcome to bend over for that price but we certainly wont.

As Tixe said, we don't care much for console games (pc gamer perspective).

[tixe]

Oh will you Australians and New Zealanders just shut up about your games costing a lot of money compared to the US.

Do you know how much a new 360 / PS3 title costs here in Denmark?

100$

100 American Dollars.

So quit your whining, and just be happy with what you got.

Who cares about PS3/xbox? THose consoles are made to milk as much money out of you as possible. That's why we pc gamers get screwed so much.

[FuryX]

who cares about console pricing?...its a pile of stone age tech...

[hat]

As far as I know NZ is far from everything (except Antartica and Australia) also is country ruled by extreme conservative people that hates videogames.

Quite frankly Brazil, South Africa, India or China are better markets than NZ (Sorry)

I guess what you know isn't very far.

[KillaKanl0rd]

Us Aussie's are finally getting a chance for an R18+ rating, the board is set to put forward the proposed guidelines to parliament sometime in July.
Hopefully that'll liberate us at least a bit...

[redcap036]

I have some links that might help as to why this is happening,

1) http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/11/why-do-videogames-cost-so-much/

2) http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/05/why-does-the-witcher-2-cost-more-in-australia/

3) http://www.steamprices.com/au

4) http://steamunpowered.eu/

Hope this helps.

[Noth]

Oh will you Australians and New Zealanders just shut up about your games costing a lot of money compared to the US.

Do you know how much a new 360 / PS3 title costs here in Denmark?

100$

100 American Dollars.

So quit your whining, and just be happy with what you got.

Guess how much they cost in Australia?
$100 - $130
Or, in USD, $106 - $137

So, blow it out your ♥♥♥

[atLast]

Guess how much they cost in Australia?
$100 - $130
Or, in USD, $106 - $137

So, blow it out your ♥♥♥

God I laughed at this:D

[Darkie1337]

Guess how much they cost in Australia?
$100 - $130
Or, in USD, $106 - $137

So, blow it out your ♥♥♥

+rep for that


130 New Zealand dollars = 107.82200 U.S. dollars
Thats also the same. You can be quiet now about your "100 USD". If you don't want to moan, Feel free not to moan. I will.

Also @the links - I'm pretty sure NZ doesn't have Import Restrictions. We're pretty known for having a free market per ce and as said elsewhere, We're being lumped with AU and given the high prices as well.