Gamers are feeling the sting of Star Wars: Jedi Survivor for a second time since the game’s launch in late April. The highly anticipated sequel to 2019’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order hit consoles with a litany of glitches, making the final product unplayable in many player’s minds. Even day one patches failed to curb many of the problems gamers faced, leading to Survivor being review bombed, and with good cause. Finger-pointing broke out all around, with consumers blaming the short development time, Covid interruptions, and corporate greed for the mangled mess publisher EA was pushing.
It seems that the latter may have had more of a part to play in the overall reasoning behind Survivor’s release. Furious Australian gamers over on r/pcmasterrace shared the whopping $100 AUD base Steam price for a game that — though it has a compelling narrative and surpasses its predecessor in many ways — has performance flaws that simply can’t be overlooked. The game retails stateside for about $70 USD but it’s somewhere around $90 with tax included.
Australian gamers have been feeling the strain on their wallets for years, back in 2017 Steam issued an extra tax for certain countries, and Australia was just one of the unlucky few burdened with the extra costs. According to Kotaku AU, this added cost comes from Australia’s partnership with the European business group, which sees companies doing business at “euro-based costs.”
The business dealings behind the price hike make sense. The actual difference between the Australian and United States prices for Jedi: Survivor add up to something like $10 when the currency conversion is made. Australia’s currency is currently valued at just under 2/3 of the American dollar, so the price is justified and even seems to leave Australians with a little more cash than their stateside counterparts.
It’s the second part of the user’s post that should be ruffling feathers. Now that Microsoft has decided to universally raise their prices — from 59.99 to 69.99 — Australians are subjected to ludicrous costs around broken games. Microsoft’s recent critical failure Redfall — a vampire shooter that was plagued by glitches and arrived underdeveloped — is retailing for Australian Steam gamers at an absolutely baffling $120 AUD as opposed to $70 USD State side. Microsoft is charging Steam users nearly 10 dollars more for a game that currently holds a 5/10 on Steam.
It’s hard to deny that this move is anything other than corporate greed. One Redditor even suggested Microsoft made the move to encourage interest in Gamepass, a monthly subscription to Microsoft that gives players access to a wide verity of games.
At the end of the day, it all boils down to regional pricing. Americans may be able to buy their games “on the cheap” compared to their Aussie neighbors, but we’re willing to bet more than a few in the red, white, and blue would be happy to get their hands on a bit of that universal healthcare that drives up the cost for their neighbors down under.