Australian IT Pricing Inquiry Examines The Obvious

IT Pricing Enquiry: No Evidence For Higher Costs On Digital Games - Kotaku Australia

Further to my previous story about the IT Pricing Inquiry recommendations another little snippet has been released.  Essentially it has been formally recognised that "it is almost invariably cheaper for Australian gamers to purchase and ship physical media from the United Kingdom than it is to purchase a digital copy of the same game."  They also say that "vendors have not produced any evidence to explain why differentials are so high for such content."

Let that sink in... it is cheaper to buy and import a physical product than it is to download data from the same server that is selling the same game cheaper to the rest of the world.  Most of the arguments publishers march out to try to justify the price of games in Australia only relate to buying a physical copy from your local EB Games.  Trying to use the "high rent/wages/import costs" arguments just doesn't work when the same publishers tell Steam to charge Australians $89.99 for Call Of Duty MW2, when the same game is available to US Steam subscribers for $30.  And people wonder why Australia ranks so highly when bittorrent stats are compiled.

Australian gamers are gradually getting smarter with their buying habits however it is a slow, slow process.  I for one would love to be able to support local businesses but unless there is a massive discount it is just not worth it.  There does seem to be a trend of lower price new releases but never on the big AAA title launches.  You see the publishers know that people will pay the extra cost to be able to play the next big title ASAP so there is no incentive to see a reduction in prices on them.

I would love to have an easy answer but the only one I can think of involves everyone turning their backs on local retailers and just plain refusing to pay inflated prices but at the end of the day that will hurt a lot of other Australians before it has any impact on the publishers and distributors.

Anyone out there have any ideas?