For example, I mistakenly preordered Civ5 last year. It was like US$80 on Steam. A$50 locally (I still lived in Australia then) and I could buy it for like A$35-40 delivered from the UK.
What's weird is the physical media just installed the Steam game. So I don't get why it was so expensive on Steam.
It does seem Steam's content distribution is somewhat complicated. Like Telstra has their own Steam server so will distribute Steam content to BigPond customers and possibly broader than that. So they'll no doubt get a cut for that. Steam will take a cut. But for physical media the retailer takes a huge cut. So why so expensive digitally?
Australia requires a different version of many games because it has more stringent age ratings. This means that a separate distribution agreement is required for Oz (and thus for new Zealand because the Yanks can't tell us apart). This translated into higher prices because, well just because.
The short answer is a vpn into the US (or nearly anywhere). Prices become magically cheaper and hulu starts working.
For example, I mistakenly preordered Civ5 last year. It was like US$80 on Steam. A$50 locally (I still lived in Australia then) and I could buy it for like A$35-40 delivered from the UK.
What's weird is the physical media just installed the Steam game. So I don't get why it was so expensive on Steam.
It does seem Steam's content distribution is somewhat complicated. Like Telstra has their own Steam server so will distribute Steam content to BigPond customers and possibly broader than that. So they'll no doubt get a cut for that. Steam will take a cut. But for physical media the retailer takes a huge cut. So why so expensive digitally?