Skyrim looks like an excellent game and the reviews are tempting. I'd love to play it, but not when the recommended retail price is AU$108. The cheapest I've seen is AU$99.
How does that work? Right now US$1 is worth AU$0.99 Why is software so much more expensive here?
I still haven't played Age Of Dragons because it's still over AU$45. I have to buy the discs; downloading is not possible with my connection.
Oh well. I'll play the old games when the next best-thing-ever hits the markets.
Because they can... same reason why US prices and UK prices are more often than not exactly the same, despite the £ being equal to $1.5 to $2.
I think they think we're stupid or something..
If so, I have a sealed copy of Dragon Age 2 I'm not interested in keeping.
Shipping comes to mind, but that's a lame excuse.
(though we Canadians often get charged far more for a product or service than the exchange rate would suggest, so it's not unusual. Not that it's fair, either...)
If you have Paypal and can send me a price to post, I'll transfer the money.
(plus, I don't have a Paypal account, and most of what I've been hearing about it has been reasons not to use it)
PM with address on the way.
I don't do consoles either.
For some strange reason, they don't support mice...
Meaning you'll load six gigs of stuff onto your machine, then have an additional 2-4 gig download of patches, updates, textures and additional materials. The game *might* work without the updates, but ONLY if you don't allow the game to connect to the Internet. If it does, it'll contact the update server and find out it needs updating. Then it won't let you play without the updates.
This all varies from game to game, but that's the basics right there.
As to why US games are more expensive in other countries? American executives don't understand that the rest of the world doesn't use dollars. Be grateful that your currency is so close to ours in value?
If you were in the UK, you'd have a game that costs $49.99 in the US, listed for £49.99.
Of course, for some reason we haven't been able to figure out yet, you'll never see that same game for ฿49.99 in Thailand. Go figure.
The download thing happened when I bought Total War: Empires and Portal. Installed the game, then waited 38 hours each when they decided I couldn't play the older version because there was a newer version to upload.
Occasionally this works in customers' favour (for example, the yen has increased in value a great deal, but prices in other countries for Sony and Nintendo game consoles and software haven't increased in the local currencies as a result).
Usually it doesn't.