Time for the Australian games industry to review the RRP?

[arbok]

I don't remember the last time I bought a game in JB Hifi or KMart much less a full-price RRP game - must be at least 10 years or something for the latter. But with online shops like play-asia, ozgameshop and zavvi the prices are almost twice what you pay here.

This has been going round for several years now, so i can imagine most people's fear of shopping online and worrying about credit card details or getting things lost in the post has faded away. The aussie dollar is a little volatile recently but its not at 50cents to 1 American dollar like it was 10 years ago. How many people still shop at their local KMart AND buy at full RRP? or even $20 off RRP when you can get the same game for $50 off RRP online?

It seems publishers are happy at the current situation here. Let the gamers who want to buy it cheaper overseas do that, they still get the sale one way or another, and the 'not so bright' or impatient people buy it at the more expensive price.

What I think they really lose is overall market coverage and energy and excitement in the industry. I don't even walk into EB anymore because it doesn't have the games I'm interested in and i know its going to be expensive. Is it any wonder that bite sized gaming for $1 or $2 on the app store has really taken off? I just bought Mega Mall Story for $4.50 on the app store - full price i might add, I bought Pocket Academy for $2. Mega Mall Story I just played for 6 hours straight. I ask - how many hits does Australian Gaming Bargains still get? As many as two/three/four years ago?

To be completely honest and fair I think the RRP should of a game should be about $69. Shop Owners can still sell copies of their game AND make a profit without having to undercut overseas online shops. Would that eat into publisher profits? Maybe/maybe not - they should find their optimal price whatever it may be. But at $99 and $119 for a game, I would argue that this is hurting the growth of the industry. Especially when we are trading at $1 AU to $1 US.
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[Benza]

I'm still a sucker and buy stuff at stores. I just can't resist that impulse buy and taking it straight home to play it. Or the collectors editions on day 1.


So I guess I'm still propping up there 100 game prices. That said I never go to EB unless I have to (I'm getting AC: Revelations from there cause they're the only ones carrying the animus edition)
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[Gamesta]

I do both.If I REALLY want a game then I'm impatient and have to have it on day one so I buy it in store.If I want a game but I can easily hold out for a while I get it from ozgameshop.

[eckymosis]

The only time I buy at local stores, primarily Game or JB, is when they have sales where you really do get your monies worth when compared to the cheap online alternatives.

A key example is the last family friend night that JB had. I bought NFS Shift 2 LE for about $40. The cost online is about the same if not a few dollars cheap. Game usually have really decent sales such as the trade 2 games, get 1 for a dollar. Big W, DSE and Harvey Norman sometimes have low key sales where they try to off load clearance stock. I recall buy Devil May Cry LE for $10 from HN.

I don't bother going into local retailers except for when sales like that are going on. It's simply not worth it as we all know that the RRP for games are too high and unjustified when compared to sites like Zavvi or Ozgameshop.
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[VMan87]

I'm not sure if you're counting trade ins towards pre-orders as buying at full retail but i've so far pre-ordered 3 upcoming releases. 2 at EB and 1 at GAME.

Their recent promos of trade in towards pre-orders for +50 - 55% has made it really worthwhile and in my eyes value for money for a few reasons.

Just the other day i traded Infamous 2 in for $69 (I bought it brand new, day 1 at JB for $79) at GAME towards A/C Revelations, giving they price match on release the game will cost me +$20 or if you look at it another way i got 2 new release AAA titles for around $90 - Cheaper or atleast comparable to buying both Online.

Also i get an AU Pal Copy, on day 1 of release - meaning i can play and enjoy and then re trade back - which you're unable to do with Online shop copies.

That being said i have bought a fair few games from Zavvi, simply because these good deals at Local retailers are very few and far between.

[sobriquet835]

I will only buy games in stores that I must have day one (the next one is Uncharted 3), or if there is a really good sale on. Otherwise, it's OzGameShop or Zavvi. However, I'd be more than happy to pay an extra $10 and get the game NOW rather than wait a week. More often than not, though, you have to pay like an extra $30 in store, even JB will sell new release games for about $80 when you can get them for about $55 online.

@Vman- trading in is all well and good, but it means if you want to play a game again later, you have to re-purchase it, which is annoying and potentially costly.

[Benc82]

It's getting beyond a joke. Steam is the worst, theres no excuse for digital distribution costing more for us besides blatant price gouging.

Skyrim PC on Steam is $60usd and $90aud for Aussies.

The physical EBgames CE is $88.

How does that work?
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[Jedi_Amara]

I've been complaining about price differences for years but recently when I went to visit friends in the US (and bought a lot of games) I realised that it isn't as bad as we make it out to be. We pay more, often around double, in absolute terms, but when you compare the minimum wage here to the minimum wage in the US, we get paid a lot more - my friends were lucky to make $8 an hour, I can't imagine making that much as a 21/22-year-old here.
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[Pilot]

Yeah, the high wages people are paid here are a big factor. All non-essentials here are expensive because of it - games, books, Lego, etc, it's all a crapload more expensive than what a lot of other countries pay. If more people cotton onto games being half the price online and are willing to put a bit of faith in online purchases, give it some time and maybe video game retailers will go the way of Borders.

The 2nd hand market plays a pretty big part in everything though. Some people don't look at games costing $100, but rather being x amount of dollars after they trade in their old games. Stores have pretty good trade-in deals, especially if the game is < a month old. What's sad is that you can import a lot of games new for less than the 2nd hand price in some stores.

As long as they don't take away out right to import, I don't care that the price of games here is high. We're given a choice of where to buy and smart consumers save money by buying online or waiting for sales, people who don't know any better or want the game on day 1 pay full price (and are probably happy to do so). $100 isn't so bad anyway as this is how much a lot of SNES games used to cost almost 20 years ago and they didn't even have GST on them then.
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[OropherX]

it has nothing to do with australia's gaming industry though, unless we are talking about the legal range of retailing games? I thought that would be a government thing. It's up to the publisher to make the RRP based on that range - generally the maxmum but depends on overall sales volume i guess. For example Atelier Rorona, Ar Tonelico Qoga and Hyperdimension Neptunia all had RRP at EB of $59.99 over here purely because JRPGs don't sell here. But Activision or whatever can set a call of duty game to $109.99 because they know people will buy it and they are allowed to do it.
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[TamTam79]

As long as I can choose to import my games and/or buy them from where I want, I really don't mind what the local retailers sell their items for. They don't have my business as it is.
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[VMan87]

[Andy7000]

I only purchase gaming stuff from local retailers WHEN they give a good pre-order bonus/my favorite games so I have to get it day one/great price (sometimes you can find great items at a good price). Other than that, I just import my games from online retailers that provides better price although I have to wait for weeks to get the items.

[Island_Wolf]

[eckymosis]

I think there is one key thing that most people over look when comparing games (and most consumer products really) in Australia compared to US. Yes shipping, distribution costs etc are a factor but I would say that the most important element when deciding on price comes down on domestic market size.

Markets such as the US and Europe are far larger than Australia. As such, when gaming companies price their games in those large markets, they can afford to price them lower than in smaller markets. This is due to the significantly larger volume of sales compared to a country such Aus. It's cheaper because the pricing strategy is based on high volume sales and lower profit margins. Those markets can sustain that pricing strategy making it viable and a just price. Whereas in Australia, a market with a population of 22 million (the US has about 14x our population), a pricing strategy like that isn't viable.

Gaming companies have to aim to be profitable in each market, otherwise what's the point of them selling their games here. As such, they develop a pricing strategy that reflects Australia's market size, which in our case would be a pricing strategy based on higher profit margins and lower volume of sales. I think RRP in Aus is somewhat justified when you compare those factors. As consumers you always have the choice to purchase online or locally.
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[grim-one]

[eckymosis]

I don't agree with it but it's just the way most western corporations function. The major gaming companies answer and to some degree exist to deliver positive financial results to shareholders.

When I made the comment "Gaming companies have to aim to be profitable in each market, otherwise what's the point of them selling their games here", I was trying to speak from their point of view. Every company sells a product in hopes of reaping in the financial benefits. If a company truely doesn't believe their product won't succeed in a particular market, they won't distribute/sell in said market. Examples include particular models of cars, certain clothing brands etc.

All I trying to point out is that gaming companies owe a duty of care to their shareholders and as such look to maximise earnings even if it means that the RRP in Aus is increased in the process by way of a different pricing strategy in order to make up for the smaller market. I know it's not very fair at our end but we don't make the rules and it's simply how most multinational businesses function.

You're absolutely right in saying that could potentially doom local sales bar the uneducated shopper. I have never agreed with their practices/strategies, simply tried to point out why we pay more than others and why from a business point of view is somewhat justified.

However I'm a true believer that they're are shooting themselves in the foot as the sales they had hoped to get in our market are being diverted to sales in other regions due to the lower prices in EU and the US. It's not going to look good in their financial statements when they see that our market isn't performing as well as they'd hope making our market look unviable. Most western business are all about profits and worse yet they're quick to follow and be sheep but slow to innovate and restructure based the current climate. They need to acknowledge the fact that a significant amount of sales are being lost in certain regions and be proactive about it rather than being reactive. Review pricing strategies, distribution methods to regain that lost business and potentially price games slightly lower. Again, I highly doubt we will ever match the rrp of massive markets like EU and the US but any change is better than none. If it's good enough, people will opt to pay slightly more to have the game here and now rather than wait to have it shipped. But again, most businesses don't think like.

Believe me, I'd love to live in a world where businesses shared a health balance of pleasing consumers and shareholders. But we don't. We live in one where shareholders come first. We live in one where instead of looking at restructuring and revising pricing strategies, the more likely solution is to implement some sort of system to prevent or deter sales from overseas. It's happened before as region protection, dlc region locking etc and to most business, it would be a more viable way to solve the issue while keeping investors and shareholders happy.
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[fatpizza]

[tallkid123]

[Gamesta]