[General Discussion] Spatulaocanadians must pay a premium – basically, I can already feel the heat.

Spatulaocanadians must pay a premium – basically, I can already feel the heat

Alright, something that has bugged me a little bit is recently the price of games Canadian pay vs Americans (oh shit, I can already feel the heat from a few Aussies/Zealanders/Europeans and whomever else has to pay out of their nose for video games…like $70, 80, 90, and even surpassing $100 for PS2 special edition games etc).

First things first, we know about the whole issue of the exchange rate. Currently, the Canadian dollar is worth about, on average for the past few weeks, 89.50 cents to the American dollar. So that’s a pretty good ratio – about a 90:100 exchange rate.

According to the EB Games website, most new games for the PS2 are at about the price of $49.99 USD, with cheaper third party titles at about $39.99. For the Canadian prices, most new games are selling at $59.99 CDN, and about $49.99 for more “budget” third party title, say, Okami – which is a very fun game, no doubt. If we were to take the current exchange rate, $1.11 and calculate $49.99 USD to CDN, we’d get about $55.49. This is $4.50 less than the retail price of $59.99. The currency exchange rate has only been at this level for perhaps the past 2 and a half years. Prior to that, it was about $0.65: $1.00, pretty bad for Canadians.

One of the reasons I’m guessing that the prices will remain, for the foreseeable future, at status quo is:

1) Businesses do not adjust their prices of goods at the whim of a mere foreign currency change , whether it be DVDs, TVs, and other electronic consumer goods.

2) Currency generally doesn’t go up and down dramatically enough to warrant adjustments in prices constantly. They usually only go up fractions of a cent even over a period of months.

3) With adjustments in prices, it would make estimation of revenue figures at quarterly reports difficult for the retailers and the game publishers.

4) The Canadian editions of games do come with an extra instruction guide in French. The game itself is still in the primary language, ie English. Perhaps it’s with this extra cost of printing the extra instruction book.

5) If the publisher/retailer were to adjust prices for the Canadian games to keep in check with the US currency, they would basically have to do this with all the regions selling a particular game, meaning that they’d have to adjust with the Euro and likewise the Australian Dollar and many other currencies. Failing to do so would result in price discrimination.

Even so with all these considerations, I think Canadians are still paying a slight premium, since, our copies (minus the French instruction book) are exactly the same as the US copies.

This makes me beg the question of why gamers in Europe and Aussieland get raped up the ass with astronomical prices for games. $100 AUS for a new PS2 game? I basically shit myself when I was in Brisbane gawking over the ridiculous prices. However one thing has struck me of the huge jump in price for European and Australian copies is that they are on the PAL format. I’m not familiar with the whole works of PAL, but I’m guessing that the conversion costs that developers have to transfer from NTSC to PAL are pushing the costs to the end consumer. Still, a $40 jump per unit just to convert it?

Can anyone else shed some light as to why Canadians generally have to fork out more for games (but no where near as bad as our PAL friends) than our American friends?

I really wasn’t trying to complain about prices that Canadians have to pay, comparing it to our International friends. ;___;

How ya doing, buddy?

It's been this way forever. If prices matched what the daily exchange rate was, there would be new sticker prices every day and you'd have cheapskates flooding the stores on days when the loonie has an extra couple pennies of value to it.

That's not really a reason WHY they are slightly more expensive though. Companies are free to charge what they want for their product. And publishers often go a few extra steps up here. Box art is sometimes in two langauges, we often get two manuals, and other such things. So we're not paying extra for American copies, we're paying for Canadian copies from Canadian publishers. And stores that buy those set their own prices when selling them.

Broader questions about the prices of products in other countires requires an answer from someone well versed in economics though. Which I am not.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

The PAL conversion is one thing, but you also need to translate games for European countries (French, German, Spanish etc.).

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Are the games themselves translated to say, French and German? Wow, if that's the case then I can definately see the huge adjustment in price. I just thought that the game itself would be in English, while the instruction book and packaging might come in say, German - considering that from what I've talked to various Europeans here, English is taught amongst other languages in many European schools.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Yes, almost every game has multiple language options.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Spatula

4) The Canadian editions of games do come with an extra instruction guide in French. The game itself is still in the primary language, ie English. Perhaps it’s with this extra cost of printing the extra instruction book.

Not all editions come with this French instruction guide (thankfully). This bugs the shit out of me. It started maybe 6 or 7 years ago where there was a crackdown on video games and their lack of French-language instructions. A lot of the major publishers started either printing Canada-only game covers (hate this), or including a French booklet on the back or inside (don't mind this).

Recently though, most publishers have stopped doing this. Most notably Square-Enix, they used to have the annoying "Canada" flag on the back corner with bilingual packaging and discs. I never bought these, I got my games from the U.S., I'm picky like that. But now, Square-Enix has stopped doing this, much to my joy, I think the first game that didn't have it was "Radiata Stories". A publisher with a strong Canadian contingent, like Nintendo, though always publishes bilingual packaging (except GBA games oddly enough!).

As to this being a reason for increased prices, I doubt it. The main problem, I think, is just the slow nature the industry reacts to currency exchange. Though I do remember when the Canadian dollar was really struggling a few years back and games were $79.99 or $84.99...plus (then) 15% tax...gives me chills to think about it.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Ah yes, I knew I wasn't the only one who remembered seeing games at $79.99, although $69.99 feels somewhat high still, yet I also feel for gamers round the world who have to pay roughly $100 for the newest games.
I always likened it to same situation with anime and manga, where it seems to be doubly imported (Japan->US->Canada), therefore adding cross-border tariffs, although I'm probably wrong and the NA releases of games aren't in that situation.

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Quote:

15% tax...gives me chills to think about it.

6% GST for Alberta FOR THE WIN.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Yeah, I hate how we seem to pay more for our games, but I don't see how companies would manage the always fluctuating dollar values.

Just a quick question, but does anyone else notice that SSBM's price is insanely high for an old game? I swear, I see it for $50, that's as much as some of the new games!

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I don't mind the average price for new games, I am used to the $50-60 price range now. I remember when I bought Zelda MM for about $80 back when it came out. The only thing that pisses me off is the lack of sweet deals in my area, I can't find games for less than $30 unless I want to go on a road trip

PS: Alberta sucks...

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I thought SSBM was Player's Choice now ??? Which should be 29.99$. I never buy Player's Choice games. I don't like the ugly green (ps1) / red (ps2) / yellow (gcn) cover. I'm a bit picky like godai, but not enough to import my games from the USA.

For PAL version, I thought EVERY single game released in Europe has to contain English, French, German and [..missing the last one...]...

Since when the other province use their right for the provincial tax ? Last time I checked (must be a long time ago), only Québec was using it. (15.5% in total at that time)

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.