We all know how bad Australia gets it regarding game prices. Your average video game in Australia goes for about $90-120 these days. It made sense a while ago when Australia’s dollar was weaker, but it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense now that Australia’s dollar matches the US dollar. Australia’s parliament seems to realize this, as they’ve demanded Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe to appear in an official inquiry to explain why they’ve marked their prices so high.
Ed Husic, the one who issued said inquiry way back in last May, stated that these companies should’ve known better.
“These firms should have cooperated and been prepared to be more open and transparent about their pricing approaches. In what’s probably the first time anywhere in the world, these IT firms are now being called by the Australian Parliament to explain why they price their products so much higher in Australia compared to the US.”
It seems to have already had an effect on Adobe. Shortly afterwards, the company reduced the prices of its individual licenses for Photoshop and Creative Cloud in Australia to match American prices. Business licenses for those same programs remain unaffected, for some reason. Hopefully, this will lead to Microsoft and Apple doing the same thing, as well as other American game companies.
