http://www.pcgamer.com/australians-will-be-charged-10-percent-gst-on-steam-games-from-july/

"Australians will be charged 10 percent GST on Steam games from July"

"A handful of other countries, including New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Iceland, South Africa and India, will also pay taxes specific to those regions come March. We've reached out to GOG and the Humble Store to see whether those storefronts will introduce the tax this year."

If government were to put taxes on steam games here in North America, there would be a big uproar and many people would write to their elected politician to stop this stupid law from passing or loose votes next election.

How can you pay taxes on something you don't actually own ?

You are just getting a license to play the game when you buy it on steam.

You are getting a license to play the game regardless which store you use, you don't actually own the game on GOG either (you own your copy of the license that says you can play it).

The only way to own the game would be to find the rights owners and purchase their rights off them (and then there's the idea of intellectual property - ie. the characters in the game, the music, and the fantasy world used).

I don't think anything will change for GOG users. We already pay taxes in Europe and they are included in the price. Maybe the regional priced games will get a little more expensive for some countries, but I wouldn't even bet on that (there's no straight logic behind regional pricing).

As Maighstir said. Also, by that logic, you should also not have taxes on for example going to the cinema, going on holidays, eating in a restaurant, getting a builder to paint your room, etc, etc, etc....

So Gaben want Aussie kiss?

The enforcability of EULAs claiming that software is licensed is not yet clear. Until there is definitive law on it, I refuse to accept that I don't own the software that I've bought.

It's super fucking clear. If you try to sell or give away copies of a game you've bought a license for, you go to jail. It's enforceable because it's been enforced and people around the globe went to jail.

By that logic they're simply going to make 10% less profit off Australians after this change then, whereas they would've been making more profit off of them than us Europeans till now because their prices covered for a tax they didn't have to pay anyway.

shit, and oops.

Wait a second, no one was talking about selling multiple copies... ? Seems like you're talking about professional software pirates, while ncameron presumably meant that he treats his digital purchases just as he would traditional physical game purchases, at least to the extent that this is still possible.

I was trying to make a joke and it got fucked up so I decided not too. I wish you could delete posts.

Eh, yes, you pay tax for the games you buy, what's so strange about that? I find the strange thing to be the tax being so low. We in the Netherlands buy 21% tax over any luxury product and games are a luxury product, so 10% is a bit low.

Uh don't say stuff like this on GOG. They'll lynch you for it.