The Australian dollar and how we're getting ripped off. - General

[QUOTE=GerardV2;25471845]Damn 100 for a game? How much are cigarettes in Australia?[/QUOTE] Ehh, roughly 2 to 7 bucks for a pack of 20. But don't get me wrong, our prices aren't over the top, its the fact that we tried to have a easy simple dollar, equal to most currencies, however we were tricked into thinking a little silver coin coated in a thin sheet of [U][I]real[/I][/U] gold is worth less than a piece of paper, due to the size of both. A bad play on our part. Since then America's corporate greed has exploited us for a very long time. I have spent a total of 369.2 Australian dollars on Steam games. I thought I spent quite a bit. I had no idea I had really spent over 430 dollars.

[QUOTE=SlickBlade;25472581]Ehh, roughly 2 to 7 bucks for a pack of 20. But don't get me wrong, our prices aren't over the top, its the fact that we tried to have a easy simple dollar, equal to most currencies, however we were tricked into thinking a little silver coin coated in a thin sheet of [U][I]real[/I][/U] gold is worth less than a piece of paper, due to the size of both. A bad play on our part. Since then America's corporate greed has exploited us for a very long time. I have spent a total of 369.2 Australian dollars on Steam games. I thought I spent quite a bit. I had no idea I had really spent over 430 dollars.[/QUOTE] Wrong, prices of ciggarettes have gone up greatly. (I know for a fact because I smoke.) They put a larger tax on them because they're cunts. Depending on the brand it's $12 - $16 for a 25 pack of ciggarettes. 50 packs go from $25 - $30 and a pouch is goddam expensive aswell.

Just scan some bills, print em out, and use them to pay for stuff. I do it all the time.

Wait you have kangaroos on your one dollar coin? Far out.

[QUOTE=pie_is_good;25472933]Wait you have kangaroos on your one dollar coin? Far out.[/QUOTE] The Icelandic have crabs on their 10Kr coin Anyway it's probably due to the silly amount of scrutiny games go through when they're imported to Australia - admin costs bump up the price

[QUOTE=R3mix;25471814]I assume inflation is high?[/QUOTE]

That's got to suck so bad

Also, lets not forget the fact that the games you [b]do[/b] manage to buy, have the absolute [u]shit[/u] censored out of them.

It's not 70 bucks for a game here, it's 19.99-59.99 dollars. [editline]17th October 2010[/editline] [QUOTE=Kamaitachi;25473390]Also, lets not forget the fact that the games you [b]do[/b] manage to buy, have the absolute [u]shit[/u] censored out of them.[/QUOTE] L4D2 for example

[QUOTE=SlickBlade;25472581]coated in a thin sheet of [U][I]real[/I][/U] gold[/QUOTE] Send me all your 1 dollar coins. Now.

:psyduck: This is fucked up! Austrailia has suffered too many injustices and these inflated prices are one of them Something has to be done!

[QUOTE=Hesychasmos;25472853]Just scan some bills, print em out, and use them to pay for stuff. I do it all the time.[/QUOTE] Wow, you are impossibly dumb.

I bought the last 3 Scott Pilgrim books at a local comic book store. $20 each, $60 for all 3, then when I got home I saw them on Amazon.com for $5 each, $15 for 3. God dammit.

its because people voted labour AGAIN

[QUOTE=1239the;25471818]It's because of America. Publishing companies in the U.S. want to milk us for every dollar we have. So they charge ridiculous amounts to retail in Australia, and get off scott free. Bobby Kotick was once asked why games were so expensive in Australia. His response? "Because we can get away with it" It is not Australia's fault. It's America's fucking corporate greed.[/QUOTE] :bandwagon: Not everything is America's fault.

In Canada we had it pretty bad, especially with cars. A car would cost twice as much up here then it did in the states.

OP is a moron, the reason everything costs so much here is because we have a higher standard of living, games might cost twice as more but we have a minimum wage 3 to 5 times higher then that of the American minimum(Hard to state an exact since every minimum wage is different in America), the minimum wage here is $15.50 an hour, so I'd say that prices are actually fair.

But we have much better pay rates in Australia, all the high school drop outs end up working in the mines for $100K+ a year (I know several friends doing this) Neither of these jobs require any form of educational requirements, one of my mates left school in yr10 and now he is working on an oil rig pulling over $150k... his first car costs $50k even though it was a ford peice of shit meh.

heres some example prices for you guys [url]http://www.ebgames.com.au/search?title=Call+of+Duty:+Black+Ops[/url] :frog:

[QUOTE=Jake Nukem;25475041]OP is a moron, the reason everything costs so much here is because we have a higher standard of living, games might cost twice as more but we have a minimum wage 3 to 5 times higher then that of the American minimum(Hard to state an exact since every minimum wage is different in America), the minimum wage here is $15.50 an hour, so I'd say that prices are actually fair.[/QUOTE] Minimum wage is $15.50/hour? Shit, in Texas it's only $6.55... I feel poor now.

In 2010, the Federal Minimum Wage was raised to $15 per hour or $569.90 per week Basically the guys working at EBgames depending on ages are making $35k a year for a simple ass job. Pretty decent if you are just a uni student and can fit in the hours.

[QUOTE=mr apple;25471051]Most Australis must have seen that lately the Aussie dollar is almost matching the American dollar in currency. 1 U.S. dollar = 1.0119409 Australian dollars But what I'd like to discuss is why we have to pay for things so much more in Australia. [img_thumb]http://slightlycreaky.com/img/dollar1.jpg[/img_thumb] Compared to. [img_thumb]http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2009/10/07/alg_australian-gold-coins.jpg[/img_thumb] I'd like to get some feedback on this, because we DO pay alot extra when it is unneeded. Take a look at the game stores for example. In America you pay rougly $60 for a game, yet all the games in Australia go between $100 - $120 which is a total rip off. Even when the game is 1 year old, the price will not drop below $90. We're paying $40+ extra on games constantly along with other shit. It's total bullshit and we're getting ripped off hugely. Even when the Aussie dollar is lower, we're still paying more. tl;dr Australia is shit[/QUOTE] Know how you feel mate. Amazon/Newegg.COM Sennheiser HD555 $74.99 Amazon/Newegg.CA (Canada) Sennheiser HD555 $199.99 etc etc.

I remember when I bought my 5770 it cost about $140 on newegg, over here it cost 160€, which is about 220USD

[QUOTE=Pred4tor;25471107]It's because you have to import everything...[/QUOTE] And because there's probably a lot of bureaucracy like taxes and laws.

[QUOTE=Jake Nukem;25475041]OP is a moron, the reason everything costs so much here is because we have a higher standard of living, games might cost twice as more but we have a minimum wage 3 to 5 times higher then that of the American minimum(Hard to state an exact since every minimum wage is different in America), the minimum wage here is $15.50 an hour, so I'd say that prices are actually fair.[/QUOTE] What the fuck? Minimum wage in Maryland is $7.50. Even though most places will start off at around $8.50 - $10.00 that's still a fucking $7 - $5 difference.

The Australian dollar was only 70 cents in America just a few months ago.

High prices of games here in Oz has actually increased piracy, according to the government 1 in 3 people are pirates or have pirated something.

[QUOTE=Boeing787;25475586]In 2010, the Federal Minimum Wage was raised to $15 per hour or $569.90 per week Basically the guys working at EBgames depending on ages are making $35k a year for a simple ass job. Pretty decent if you are just a uni student and can fit in the hours.[/QUOTE] They only ever have "Looking for people" up if you have a vagina though. [editline]18th October 2010[/editline] [QUOTE=poopsicle;25481350]The Australian dollar was only 70 cents in America just a few months ago.[/QUOTE] It was 70c last year, it's been going between 80 - 90c all year.

[QUOTE=1239the;25471818]It's because of America. Publishing companies in the U.S. want to milk us for every dollar we have. So they charge ridiculous amounts to retail in Australia, and get off scott free. Bobby Kotick was once asked why games were so expensive in Australia. His response? "Because we can get away with it" It is not Australia's fault. It's America's fucking corporate greed.[/QUOTE] I never knew that publishing companies in the U.S.=all of America

I'm Australian and I agree with the shitty prices we pay for everything. But when I want a place to get games cheap when Steam's too expensive, I buy from [url]www.cdwow.com.au[/url] I got StarCraft 2 for $50AU from there, was a European version though but at least the shipping was free. That was a pre-order too by the way. And yea, I do agree we have a higher standard of living then other countries, such as the United States. At least here in Australia you don't have to tip waiters and waitresses as here they get a good wage, unlike in the United States. Hell even if you want to they'll just say "no" to it the majority of times anyways.