I'm an Australian, but I'm not worried.
Assuming this does get implemented(because labor are so so good at following things through), it's just a matter of time before youtube video's of people giving demonstrations of how to bypass the filtering come out.
At that point, the government will either have to admit defeat(spending $texas on a scheme that 14 year old boys can get around) or block youtube. If they choose the latter, it will be seen as blocking political dissent, and we will have rioting in the streets(come on, we've rioted for less).
But yeah, I'll say this right now. Australian Compulsory filtering - Not gonna happen.
Yeah I have to agree with you on this, Fuelwatch, Grocerywatch, now Netwatch. Talk about it for 3 months, backpage it and be donewith it.
But on another note:- WTF have we rioted for in the last 20 years? No Muslims in Cronulla is the only thing I can think of.
it's just a matter of time before youtube video's of people giving demonstrations of how to bypass the filtering come out.
I can tell you right now how to bypass it. There are several different approaches you can use. Most of them would be difficult for the Government to stop... and one of them is actually impossible to stop.
I'm an Australian, but I'm not worried.
Assuming this does get implemented(because labor are so so good at following things through), it's just a matter of time before youtube video's of people giving demonstrations of how to bypass the filtering come out.
At that point, the government will either have to admit defeat(spending $texas on a scheme that 14 year old boys can get around) or block youtube. If they choose the latter, it will be seen as blocking political dissent, and we will have rioting in the streets(come on, we've rioted for less).
But yeah, I'll say this right now. Australian Compulsory filtering - Not gonna happen.
Yeah I have to agree with you on this, Fuelwatch, Grocerywatch, now Netwatch. Talk about it for 3 months, backpage it and be donewith it.
But on another note:- WTF have we rioted for in the last 20 years? No Muslims in Cronulla is the only thing I can think of.
Sort of what I was pointing at. Of course, I guess only people like us (non-Neanderthals) would see that as a non-issue
Despite the fall in our currency value, CD Wow still has most PC games priced at AU$50. So, you can pick up games like Fallout 3 or Far Cry 2 for the equivalent of US$34.
Another factor is that Steve Fielding, the Senator from Family First, currently holds the balance of power in the Senate. He has made it clear that his support for Labor's legislative agenda is dependent on them taking action on Internet censorship. If they annoy him, then they will face a hostile Senate, and governance will stall altogether.
Family First scare me. Alot.
Steve Fielding has single handedly killed this bill I think though. He's on record as saying he wanted the compulsory censorship extended to all sorts of immoral things - anything which had a higher rating then Australian's R18+ or whatever (and one can imagine we're gonna get fucked on game downloads because of the whole "no R18+ rating" thing).
He neatly painted that he was comfortable with slippery sloping compulsory internet censorship. The important thing about fundies is that they're really not evil geniuses.
The lack of media on this topic makes me think they stand to benefit from this though.
The SMH and The Australian have covered it... but the coverage had the tone of "Yeah, right. It will never actually happen".
I mean, the previous Government spent a decade planning to implement similar schemes, and in the end fell back on a client-side filtering program that was no better than existing software.
There's a general sense of deja vu. We've been here before. We kicked up a big stink in 1999 and 2000, but nothing eventuated anyway.
I think it's more of a worry this time than in the past, but you can't blame people for thinking it's another case of all talk and no action.
EDIT: Here are some relevant User Friendly comics from 1999. They were actually a bit of a rival of PA back then:
Fact Number One: Did you know that in Australia, we pay approximately %150 of a games american retail value? and thats before even factoring in currency exchange and what not. For me to buy a copy of WAR would cost around au$100. TERRIFIC! For what reason, you ask? Well! it's because the game industry likes to fuck us, nice and hard. There is no good reason that anyone can give, we will pay more so we do pay more! YAY!
That is entirely correct. It has nothing to do with the fact that Australia is an island on the bottom of the world, and the cost of shipping goods to such a remote destination doesn't even factor into things. Your inflated cost is entirely, 100% the result of the game industry's unholy love for sodomizing that tight, hot Aussie ass.
Fact number one: when I lived in New Zealand many years ago, the average cost of a new car was about $10,000 more than it would have been back here in North America. Clearly the auto industry has a similar obsession with the anal sphincters of Kiwis! Again, there's no way it was related to the fact that New Zealand is an even smaller island on the bottom of the world.
Fact number two: as recently as last year, books in Canada cost, on average, about 30% more than their US versions, before adjusting for exchange rate. Half of these books were even printed in Canada, but we still paid through the nose for them. Games used to be a lot more expensive, too; I remember paying $91 for my copy of Quake 3, like, 8-9 years ago.
Fact number three: in Tuktoyaktuk, in the Northwest Territories of Canada, a gallon of milk sells for $16 during the winter. Highway robbery! God, the dairy industry loves ass-raping those Inuit.
Fact number zero: items are priced differently in different regions of the world as a result of many factors, including supply and demand, shipping times and costs, tariffs and import taxes, distance from primary shipping routes, and place of origin. This is a simple reality of the global economy! Until we invent teleporters that allow low- or no-cost transmission of physical goods from one side of the world to another, it is a simple axiom of life that somebody, somewhere, is always getting fucked on the cost of something they buy.
[The More You Know.jpg]
Yeah because there's no such thing as local manufacturing and markets...and isn't it easier to ship from China factories to Australia than the U.S anyway? I believe it's an 8 hour flight from the southernmost parts of China.
All I know is that if Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore can sell Xbox games dirt cheap at official price, there has to be some way of not artificially inflating the price of a license to run someone else's application on your application box.
Also, Europe gets reamed on game prices as well. It's not as simple as shipping costs and basic supply and demand.
Okay now fucking explain why buying Call of Duty 4 from Steam costs me twice as much as it costs people in America arsehole?
Before or after the exchange rate? Because our dollar is fucked against the US at the moment.
Half the games on Steam are the same price as in the US, whereas some (mostly on a publisher basis) are more expensive. Fallout 3 for instance is $70US.
I've heard more fucked up things about Australia though. Like coordinated drug stops for every car on the highway, which obviously creates major traffic congestion but what the fuck, you're gonna stop everyone on the road to see if they're high or slap them with a possession charge?
I've heard more fucked up things about Australia though. Like coordinated drug stops for every car on the highway, which obviously creates major traffic congestion but what the fuck, you're gonna stop everyone on the road to see if they're high or slap them with a possession charge?
Wha... what?
Not everyone has to stop for drug-testing.
Plus unless there's reports of it creating major traffic congestion this is just making shit up.
The reason Australian games used to cost so much is that our currency spent a long time drifting between 50c and 75c to the US dollar. As a result, our prices were set as if the exchange rate was around the 65-70c to the US dollar mark. That was fair enough.
Over the past few years, the Aussie dollar has skyrocketed up to the point where it was almost at parity with the US dollar. When that happened, we were getting a terrible deal. It was much cheaper to import.
Now, the Aussie dollar has drifted back down into the 60-70c range, so the prices are fair once again. In fact, if you bought games locally last week (when the Aussie dollar was down around the 62c mark), it worked out far cheaper than importing.
We have been ripped off on game prices for the past two years, but things aren't actually bad at all right now.
Half the games on Steam are the same price as in the US, whereas some (mostly on a publisher basis) are more expensive. Fallout 3 for instance is $70US.
But you can buy it in boxed form for AU$50... that's US$34.
Things are strange right now, and it's all due to the crazy fluctuating exchange rates.
I've heard more fucked up things about Australia though. Like coordinated drug stops for every car on the highway, which obviously creates major traffic congestion but what the fuck, you're gonna stop everyone on the road to see if they're high or slap them with a possession charge?
Pretty much, they had one of these on the way home from work the other day. You drive up, they divert X amount of cars into the lane along the median strip and everyone else keeps driving by while until the drivers are done blowing into the tubes.
It's pretty much identical to breath testing but I've never seen them doing it on a highway, it tends to be the roads that lead off of freeways they try to catch people on as they're going out or heading home for the night. It only takes maybe a couple of minutes if you do end up needing to do the test though so it isn't really an issue.
Okay now fucking explain why buying Call of Duty 4 from Steam costs me twice as much as it costs people in America arsehole?
Before or after the exchange rate? Because our dollar is fucked against the US at the moment.
Half the games on Steam are the same price as in the US, whereas some (mostly on a publisher basis) are more expensive. Fallout 3 for instance is $70US.
I think it's mostly due to local culture and purchasing power. Like the non Japan Asia market, when Microsoft decided to launch Xbox- this market was basically overrun by piracy, both warez and "entrepreneurs" selling burned copies of games everywhere. They were able to get around customs raids by just taking orders and making customers wait while a fresh copy was burned. This grew not only because of the local culture and incentives, but also due to companies ignoring the market, as Nintendo still does.
Today, piracy has largely gone down for various reasons, and Xbox sales picked up in Hong Kong way more than would be expected for an Asian audience, because Microsoft decided to cater to the local market by saying look, we'll release and market games locally and keep prices lower than anywhere in the world, and ban modded Xboxes from live, which we will also advertise through local ISP's.
Australia never had the piracy, and always had a more wealthy population.
I've heard more fucked up things about Australia though. Like coordinated drug stops for every car on the highway, which obviously creates major traffic congestion but what the fuck, you're gonna stop everyone on the road to see if they're high or slap them with a possession charge?
It part of some of the random breath testing units now, but I think its limited to only some states (I know QLD has it or were trialling it). IT's not like every cop is able to swab you when they pull you over.
Plus, I don't think they will ever truely target the major highways. Too many truckers on speed and they keep the Australia moving.
I've heard more fucked up things about Australia though. Like coordinated drug stops for every car on the highway, which obviously creates major traffic congestion but what the fuck, you're gonna stop everyone on the road to see if they're high or slap them with a possession charge?
It part of some of the random breath testing units now, but I think its limited to only some states (I know QLD has it or were trialling it). IT's not like every cop is able to swab you when they pull you over.
Plus, I don't think they will ever truely target the major highways. Too many truckers on speed and they keep the Australia moving.
My source is a friend who went there for college, but I'd consider him dodgy and would take your word over his. But he claimed there were stops with teams trained to go through your car in under 3 minutes or something. Come to think of it that sounds fucking ridiculous.
My source is a friend who went there for college, but I'd consider him dodgy and would take your word over his. But he claimed there were stops with teams trained to go through your car in under 3 minutes or something. Come to think of it that sounds fucking ridiculous.
It doesn't happen.
The drink/drug tests are just police vehicles at the side of the road that wave down the occasional car and have them blow (or speak into) a device that measures whether they are off their head.
I've seen them on the side of the road occasionally, but I've never actually been waved over myself. Perhaps that's because I ride a motorcycle and rarely drive a car. I have been in cars that have been waved over (usually when I'm getting a lift home from a night out), and the whole process takes about a minute and is pretty friendly.
Marlor on
Mario Kart Wii: 1332-8060-5236 (Aaron)
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CrayonSleeps in the wrong bed.TejasRegistered Userregular
edited October 2008
Clearly there is only one solution. America needs to invade Australia right the fuck now.
Clearly there is only one solution. America needs to invade Australia right the fuck now.
The only real issue is the internet filter, and I think that issue will be solved by itself if the authorities try to turn the porn pipes off. They'll look at the next opinion poll and reverse the policy immediately.
I'm really not worried. I put a lot of effort into helping campaign against the Howard Government in 1999 when they proposed the same thing, and I think the current proposal will probably end up being just as unsuccessful. It's just a shame that it's been almost 10 years since then, and the bureaucrats in Canberra still can't let the plan die.
Clearly there is only one solution. America needs to invade Australia right the fuck now.
I don't think it would make much diffrence. We are pretty much immersed in your culture anyway. You should of seen what the Laguna beach and the Hills did here. The Kids are still fucked up.
PhealMe on
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CrayonSleeps in the wrong bed.TejasRegistered Userregular
Clearly there is only one solution. America needs to invade Australia right the fuck now.
I don't think it would make much diffrence. We are pretty much immersed in your culture anyway. You should of seen what the Laguna beach and the Hills did here. The Kids are still fucked up.
My ex-girlfriend watched that show. It is also one of the many a reason she now has the prefix ex.
We already had that. Rudd campaigned on the same CHANGE platform as various others are doing.
He is the Golden boy of the ALP (left side of politics, if we can claim to have a left side of politics anymore) and he defeated the incumbant Conservitative government.
At least Xenophon is'nt as crazy as the greens and Fielding. I'm in QLD so i don't hear to much of him, but he seems like a true independant looking our for the people that elected him. (am I living in dream land?)
He's only pro-censorship because he's really really anti-gambling, but that's also a problem in that he has little objection to blocking non-illegal content, which is ethically questionable, shall we say.
I don't believe the internet censorship thing will actually get off the ground, but its even less likely to if the sudden influx of aussies here (heya, kids) get off their asses and contact their local members as well as whining here. Write letters, kidlings. On paper. Have someone proofread them, and try to refrain from using cusses. There's a lot of good commentary out and about from which you can crib strong arguments, like 'it will cripple businesses' and 'it will make the internet unusable in the outback, thus punking up medical and educational services'. Get to it.
Sure, Fielding will extract something else inane, but the balance of power is held by Fielding and Xenophon. Rudd isn't totally held hostage, he can amend policy to be palatable to other parties in the senate to get things passed - though obviously not getting all his own way.
Which, I guess is what the senate is ultimately for.
The balance of power is held by the Greens, Fielding and Xenophon.
In other words, for the ALP to get anything passed, they need the support of all of them. Get one of them off-side, and we're headed for a double dissolution.
Not strictly correct, getting all/most of the Greens actively on side should be enough to stop it. And they're pretty hugely anti-censorship.
I've heard more fucked up things about Australia though. Like coordinated drug stops for every car on the highway, which obviously creates major traffic congestion but what the fuck, you're gonna stop everyone on the road to see if they're high or slap them with a possession charge?
Wait, you people don't have RBTs? That's pretty silly.
And no, the police don't nab everyone, they usually set up a stop and wave down a few cars at random. And they don't do it in fucking peak hour :roll:. Late nights and early mornings, mostly on weekends, mostly near the pub/club districts. That's perfectly sensible, and the catch rate is high enough that they're definitely preventing a large number of selfish assholes from smashing into trees, houses, and people. Of all the policing measures you could rant about, this is close to the dumbest choice.
I've heard more fucked up things about Australia though. Like coordinated drug stops for every car on the highway, which obviously creates major traffic congestion but what the fuck, you're gonna stop everyone on the road to see if they're high or slap them with a possession charge?
Wait, you people don't have RBTs? That's pretty silly.
And no, the police don't nab everyone, they usually set up a stop and wave down a few cars at random. And they don't do it in fucking peak hour :roll:. Late nights and early mornings, mostly on weekends, mostly near the pub/club districts. That's perfectly sensible, and the catch rate is high enough that they're definitely preventing a large number of selfish assholes from smashing into trees, houses, and people. Of all the policing measures you could rant about, this is close to the dumbest choice.
It's not about the catch rate anyway really, it's more about setting them up in perverse enough places that if you were thinking about driving at a risky level of intoxication there's no route you can consider where there's "no way" the cops would have an RBT.
I've heard more fucked up things about Australia though. Like coordinated drug stops for every car on the highway, which obviously creates major traffic congestion but what the fuck, you're gonna stop everyone on the road to see if they're high or slap them with a possession charge?
Wait, you people don't have RBTs? That's pretty silly.
And no, the police don't nab everyone, they usually set up a stop and wave down a few cars at random. And they don't do it in fucking peak hour :roll:. Late nights and early mornings, mostly on weekends, mostly near the pub/club districts. That's perfectly sensible, and the catch rate is high enough that they're definitely preventing a large number of selfish assholes from smashing into trees, houses, and people. Of all the policing measures you could rant about, this is close to the dumbest choice.
It's not about the catch rate anyway really, it's more about setting them up in perverse enough places that if you were thinking about driving at a risky level of intoxication there's no route you can consider where there's "no way" the cops would have an RBT.
Apparently that line of thought doesn't extend far outside the cities, though. Mate of mine from Grafton says its common knowledge that the local cops lurk in the same spot every weekend :P
The balance of power is held by the Greens, Fielding and Xenophon.
In other words, for the ALP to get anything passed, they need the support of all of them. Get one of them off-side, and we're headed for a double dissolution.
Not strictly correct, getting all/most of the Greens actively on side should be enough to stop it. And they're pretty hugely anti-censorship.
No, they need the support of every single one of the cross-benchers. Or, at the very least, they need the support of the Greens and one of Xenophon and Fielding, and the other to abstain.
The numbers are as follows:
ALP: 32
Lib/Nat: 37
Greens: 5
Family First: 1
Xenophon: 1
So, the ALP plus the Greens gives 37 votes. They need a majority to pass legislation, so they therefore need the support of either Fielding or Xenophon as well. But, if either Xenophon or Fielding vote against them, they will lose the vote.
So, in summary the ALP need the Greens plus one of the "independents" to pass legislation... but if just one cross-bencher sides with the coalition, the ALP can't win. No matter what.
The good news as far as censorship goes is that the Greens won't vote for it... but enough Coalition senators might.
Fact Number One: Did you know that in Australia, we pay approximately %150 of a games american retail value? and thats before even factoring in currency exchange and what not. For me to buy a copy of WAR would cost around au$100. TERRIFIC! For what reason, you ask? Well! it's because the game industry likes to fuck us, nice and hard. There is no good reason that anyone can give, we will pay more so we do pay more! YAY!
That is entirely correct. It has nothing to do with the fact that Australia is an island on the bottom of the world, and the cost of shipping goods to such a remote destination doesn't even factor into things. Your inflated cost is entirely, 100% the result of the game industry's unholy love for sodomizing that tight, hot Aussie ass.
Yes, this totally explains why a lot of Steam games cost between US$20 and US$40 more than they do in the US. Because sending those bits over the internet costs so much money!
I've heard more fucked up things about Australia though. Like coordinated drug stops for every car on the highway, which obviously creates major traffic congestion but what the fuck, you're gonna stop everyone on the road to see if they're high or slap them with a possession charge?
It part of some of the random breath testing units now, but I think its limited to only some states (I know QLD has it or were trialling it). IT's not like every cop is able to swab you when they pull you over.
Plus, I don't think they will ever truely target the major highways. Too many truckers on speed and they keep the Australia moving.
My source is a friend who went there for college, but I'd consider him dodgy and would take your word over his. But he claimed there were stops with teams trained to go through your car in under 3 minutes or something. Come to think of it that sounds fucking ridiculous.
o_O
Your friend must have been high the whole time he was here and hallucinated stuff.
My source is a friend who went there for college, but I'd consider him dodgy and would take your word over his. But he claimed there were stops with teams trained to go through your car in under 3 minutes or something. Come to think of it that sounds fucking ridiculous.
And so we have a wonderful demonstration of why it is always important to verify your information. Which is, interestingly, an issue in... several of this thread's topics. Adequate data would go a long way towards moving this thread away from anecdotal prices and law enforcement issues.
Seriously, the censorial thing seems the more interesting piece, even if it is doomed. Then again, it wouldn't seem entirely out of place with some other Australian law - what makes the nation of desert so enthusiastic about this sort of thing?
convict history, resurgence of public religiosity, apathy, shitty media, small-and-scattered population.
Interestingly, this thing with the SA Attorney General may lead to some substantial changes in the way the AG's office works, since everyone else is finally noticing that one idiot could screw things up completely on more important legal issues. The commentary has been promising so far.
And yes, there are more important legal issues that the AG's deal with besides games. I'm kind of worried that the tone of the OP makes me feel that I need to point this out...
And yes, there are more important legal issues that the AG's deal with besides games. I'm kind of worried that the tone of the OP makes me feel that I need to point this out...
The whole OP was a bit worrying.
Most games are actually priced on-par with the US, given the current exchange rate.
The ratings issue is a result of the current ridiculous situation with the Atkinson stalemate. The other AGs have been trying their best.
The censorship debacle is the result of a complex political situation... but IMHO is also due to Conroy's lack of political and technological savvy.
It's just not a simple case of "AUSTRALIA SUCKS!! POOR AUSSIE GAMERS!!".
Most games are actually priced on-par with the US, given the current exchange rate.
Okay so it being comparable with the current exchange rate mean that it was retroactively not blatant price gouging when the dollar was worth 90 cents to the yank dollar?
Exactly. Just because prices have aligned now doesn't mean that for the few years that our dollar was at US$.90 charging us AU$100 per game wasn't a total fucking ripoff.
I don't see how "The other AGs have been trying their best" in any way actually solves the R18+ issue. It's not good enough, we need better rules so that some git the South Australians voted in can't ruin things for the other states.
The censorship debacle is the Labor Party's attempts to fellate Senator Fielding, or at least I hope so. Rudd quite enjoys sitting on a moral high horse and berating Australians for their non-Christian lifestyles. I like most people doubt anything so outrageous will go through, but if it does I'm pissing off to New Zealand, or maybe Scandinavia.
The fact of the matter is that both major parties in Australia are overly Christian, and only really differ on benefitting the white-collar (Liberal) or blue-collar (Labor) workers. Rudd ran for government on pretty sensible campaign promises, but being Labor everyone knows through corruption and incompetence his party would only end passing like a third of them. Moreover, more people voted for him since Howard was an ultra-conservative wanker by that stage and people wanted him out more than they wanted Labor in.
well ok, the word 'fact' may have been oversell, but fuck, at least we are talking about it now.
the price thing: being ripped off is being ripped off. fuck that. even *if* MOST games are *on parr*, what about the ones that arn't? how many games do we get that are sub parr to balance this shit out? we are living in a new world, and pricing strucures need to reflect that.
R18+ ratings: i dont give a limbless hookers corpse about people trying their best. it's not good enough that we are behind the eight on this one. i'm twenty fucking nine, and i should be able to buy and play games made for me, i want to be able to have that choice. when my daughter wants to get on the computer, she sure as fuck won't be playing any game unless i buy it for her and i approve it.
And no, the AG's dont have *more* important things to worry about. if australian's feel that there is an issue like this, that only the AG's can deal with as is the case here, THEN THATS THEIR FUCKING JOBS. they are public servants, and they should fucking look up what that means.
Internet censorship: well this shit is just plain silly. why should the govenment even be conidering this turd of a policy? but the fact is they are, whether it will pass or die is not the real issue; the fact that they are considering it says a lot.
If you are worried about my post then fuck off. if you
I like most people doubt anything so outrageous will go through, but if it does I'm pissing off to New Zealand, or maybe Scandinavia.
Not everything is rosy in Scandinavia. Sweden is in the process of allowing itself to monitor EVERYTHING on the internet that passes Swedish borders. Which means us in Norway since 90%+ of our net
access is through Sweden.
As for prices on games. New full price (console) games are 90$ (With the Norwegian Kroner being the lowest it has been in years, it used to be 120$). Now some of this is 25% sales tax, while the rest is the market charging what it is able to. I'm not sure how Australian incomes compares to US incomes, but with that calculated in, we're not that bad off.
Posts
Yeah I have to agree with you on this, Fuelwatch, Grocerywatch, now Netwatch. Talk about it for 3 months, backpage it and be donewith it.
But on another note:- WTF have we rioted for in the last 20 years? No Muslims in Cronulla is the only thing I can think of.
I can tell you right now how to bypass it. There are several different approaches you can use. Most of them would be difficult for the Government to stop... and one of them is actually impossible to stop.
Despite the fall in our currency value, CD Wow still has most PC games priced at AU$50. So, you can pick up games like Fallout 3 or Far Cry 2 for the equivalent of US$34.
He neatly painted that he was comfortable with slippery sloping compulsory internet censorship. The important thing about fundies is that they're really not evil geniuses.
I had to tell my mother today and she was horrified, as were all my mates.
There are a LOT of angry soldiers right now who are baying for blood since thier porn is at risk.
Seeing that they're around on par with American prices if you don't buy from EB.
Also, internet censorship shouldn't be a problem at all.
Goddamn Family First too. It's scary to think that people actually voted for them.
The SMH and The Australian have covered it... but the coverage had the tone of "Yeah, right. It will never actually happen".
I mean, the previous Government spent a decade planning to implement similar schemes, and in the end fell back on a client-side filtering program that was no better than existing software.
There's a general sense of deja vu. We've been here before. We kicked up a big stink in 1999 and 2000, but nothing eventuated anyway.
I think it's more of a worry this time than in the past, but you can't blame people for thinking it's another case of all talk and no action.
EDIT: Here are some relevant User Friendly comics from 1999. They were actually a bit of a rival of PA back then:
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=19990606
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=19990530
Yeah because there's no such thing as local manufacturing and markets...and isn't it easier to ship from China factories to Australia than the U.S anyway? I believe it's an 8 hour flight from the southernmost parts of China.
All I know is that if Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore can sell Xbox games dirt cheap at official price, there has to be some way of not artificially inflating the price of a license to run someone else's application on your application box.
Also, Europe gets reamed on game prices as well. It's not as simple as shipping costs and basic supply and demand.
Wha... what?
Not everyone has to stop for drug-testing.
Plus unless there's reports of it creating major traffic congestion this is just making shit up.
Over the past few years, the Aussie dollar has skyrocketed up to the point where it was almost at parity with the US dollar. When that happened, we were getting a terrible deal. It was much cheaper to import.
Now, the Aussie dollar has drifted back down into the 60-70c range, so the prices are fair once again. In fact, if you bought games locally last week (when the Aussie dollar was down around the 62c mark), it worked out far cheaper than importing.
We have been ripped off on game prices for the past two years, but things aren't actually bad at all right now.
But you can buy it in boxed form for AU$50... that's US$34.
Things are strange right now, and it's all due to the crazy fluctuating exchange rates.
Pretty much, they had one of these on the way home from work the other day. You drive up, they divert X amount of cars into the lane along the median strip and everyone else keeps driving by while until the drivers are done blowing into the tubes.
It's pretty much identical to breath testing but I've never seen them doing it on a highway, it tends to be the roads that lead off of freeways they try to catch people on as they're going out or heading home for the night. It only takes maybe a couple of minutes if you do end up needing to do the test though so it isn't really an issue.
I think it's mostly due to local culture and purchasing power. Like the non Japan Asia market, when Microsoft decided to launch Xbox- this market was basically overrun by piracy, both warez and "entrepreneurs" selling burned copies of games everywhere. They were able to get around customs raids by just taking orders and making customers wait while a fresh copy was burned. This grew not only because of the local culture and incentives, but also due to companies ignoring the market, as Nintendo still does.
Today, piracy has largely gone down for various reasons, and Xbox sales picked up in Hong Kong way more than would be expected for an Asian audience, because Microsoft decided to cater to the local market by saying look, we'll release and market games locally and keep prices lower than anywhere in the world, and ban modded Xboxes from live, which we will also advertise through local ISP's.
Australia never had the piracy, and always had a more wealthy population.
It part of some of the random breath testing units now, but I think its limited to only some states (I know QLD has it or were trialling it). IT's not like every cop is able to swab you when they pull you over.
Plus, I don't think they will ever truely target the major highways. Too many truckers on speed and they keep the Australia moving.
My source is a friend who went there for college, but I'd consider him dodgy and would take your word over his. But he claimed there were stops with teams trained to go through your car in under 3 minutes or something. Come to think of it that sounds fucking ridiculous.
It doesn't happen.
The drink/drug tests are just police vehicles at the side of the road that wave down the occasional car and have them blow (or speak into) a device that measures whether they are off their head.
I've seen them on the side of the road occasionally, but I've never actually been waved over myself. Perhaps that's because I ride a motorcycle and rarely drive a car. I have been in cars that have been waved over (usually when I'm getting a lift home from a night out), and the whole process takes about a minute and is pretty friendly.
The only real issue is the internet filter, and I think that issue will be solved by itself if the authorities try to turn the porn pipes off. They'll look at the next opinion poll and reverse the policy immediately.
I'm really not worried. I put a lot of effort into helping campaign against the Howard Government in 1999 when they proposed the same thing, and I think the current proposal will probably end up being just as unsuccessful. It's just a shame that it's been almost 10 years since then, and the bureaucrats in Canberra still can't let the plan die.
I don't think it would make much diffrence. We are pretty much immersed in your culture anyway. You should of seen what the Laguna beach and the Hills did here. The Kids are still fucked up.
My ex-girlfriend watched that show. It is also one of the many a reason she now has the prefix ex.
He's only pro-censorship because he's really really anti-gambling, but that's also a problem in that he has little objection to blocking non-illegal content, which is ethically questionable, shall we say.
I don't believe the internet censorship thing will actually get off the ground, but its even less likely to if the sudden influx of aussies here (heya, kids) get off their asses and contact their local members as well as whining here. Write letters, kidlings. On paper. Have someone proofread them, and try to refrain from using cusses. There's a lot of good commentary out and about from which you can crib strong arguments, like 'it will cripple businesses' and 'it will make the internet unusable in the outback, thus punking up medical and educational services'. Get to it.
And no, the police don't nab everyone, they usually set up a stop and wave down a few cars at random. And they don't do it in fucking peak hour :roll:. Late nights and early mornings, mostly on weekends, mostly near the pub/club districts. That's perfectly sensible, and the catch rate is high enough that they're definitely preventing a large number of selfish assholes from smashing into trees, houses, and people. Of all the policing measures you could rant about, this is close to the dumbest choice.
Apparently that line of thought doesn't extend far outside the cities, though. Mate of mine from Grafton says its common knowledge that the local cops lurk in the same spot every weekend :P
No, they need the support of every single one of the cross-benchers. Or, at the very least, they need the support of the Greens and one of Xenophon and Fielding, and the other to abstain.
The numbers are as follows:
ALP: 32
Lib/Nat: 37
Greens: 5
Family First: 1
Xenophon: 1
So, the ALP plus the Greens gives 37 votes. They need a majority to pass legislation, so they therefore need the support of either Fielding or Xenophon as well. But, if either Xenophon or Fielding vote against them, they will lose the vote.
So, in summary the ALP need the Greens plus one of the "independents" to pass legislation... but if just one cross-bencher sides with the coalition, the ALP can't win. No matter what.
The good news as far as censorship goes is that the Greens won't vote for it... but enough Coalition senators might.
Yes, this totally explains why a lot of Steam games cost between US$20 and US$40 more than they do in the US. Because sending those bits over the internet costs so much money!
o_O
Your friend must have been high the whole time he was here and hallucinated stuff.
Seriously, the censorial thing seems the more interesting piece, even if it is doomed. Then again, it wouldn't seem entirely out of place with some other Australian law - what makes the nation of desert so enthusiastic about this sort of thing?
Interestingly, this thing with the SA Attorney General may lead to some substantial changes in the way the AG's office works, since everyone else is finally noticing that one idiot could screw things up completely on more important legal issues. The commentary has been promising so far.
And yes, there are more important legal issues that the AG's deal with besides games. I'm kind of worried that the tone of the OP makes me feel that I need to point this out...
The whole OP was a bit worrying.
Most games are actually priced on-par with the US, given the current exchange rate.
The ratings issue is a result of the current ridiculous situation with the Atkinson stalemate. The other AGs have been trying their best.
The censorship debacle is the result of a complex political situation... but IMHO is also due to Conroy's lack of political and technological savvy.
It's just not a simple case of "AUSTRALIA SUCKS!! POOR AUSSIE GAMERS!!".
Okay so it being comparable with the current exchange rate mean that it was retroactively not blatant price gouging when the dollar was worth 90 cents to the yank dollar?
I don't see how "The other AGs have been trying their best" in any way actually solves the R18+ issue. It's not good enough, we need better rules so that some git the South Australians voted in can't ruin things for the other states.
The censorship debacle is the Labor Party's attempts to fellate Senator Fielding, or at least I hope so. Rudd quite enjoys sitting on a moral high horse and berating Australians for their non-Christian lifestyles. I like most people doubt anything so outrageous will go through, but if it does I'm pissing off to New Zealand, or maybe Scandinavia.
The fact of the matter is that both major parties in Australia are overly Christian, and only really differ on benefitting the white-collar (Liberal) or blue-collar (Labor) workers. Rudd ran for government on pretty sensible campaign promises, but being Labor everyone knows through corruption and incompetence his party would only end passing like a third of them. Moreover, more people voted for him since Howard was an ultra-conservative wanker by that stage and people wanted him out more than they wanted Labor in.
the price thing: being ripped off is being ripped off. fuck that. even *if* MOST games are *on parr*, what about the ones that arn't? how many games do we get that are sub parr to balance this shit out? we are living in a new world, and pricing strucures need to reflect that.
R18+ ratings: i dont give a limbless hookers corpse about people trying their best. it's not good enough that we are behind the eight on this one. i'm twenty fucking nine, and i should be able to buy and play games made for me, i want to be able to have that choice. when my daughter wants to get on the computer, she sure as fuck won't be playing any game unless i buy it for her and i approve it.
And no, the AG's dont have *more* important things to worry about. if australian's feel that there is an issue like this, that only the AG's can deal with as is the case here, THEN THATS THEIR FUCKING JOBS. they are public servants, and they should fucking look up what that means.
Internet censorship: well this shit is just plain silly. why should the govenment even be conidering this turd of a policy? but the fact is they are, whether it will pass or die is not the real issue; the fact that they are considering it says a lot.
If you are worried about my post then fuck off. if you
Not everything is rosy in Scandinavia. Sweden is in the process of allowing itself to monitor EVERYTHING on the internet that passes Swedish borders. Which means us in Norway since 90%+ of our net
access is through Sweden.
As for prices on games. New full price (console) games are 90$ (With the Norwegian Kroner being the lowest it has been in years, it used to be 120$). Now some of this is 25% sales tax, while the rest is the market charging what it is able to. I'm not sure how Australian incomes compares to US incomes, but with that calculated in, we're not that bad off.