It is ridiculous, I'll agree, and it's equally ridiculous how much more you have to pay for games in Australia. :(

From what I've seen, the adding of an R-18 rating is now on the cards, but that does nothing to solve the second issue, so you have my condolences.

I live in the US and I still don't go to local game shops. I barely go to stores anymore, everything is so damn far away, the only thing close by is the grocery store and that's still an hour to walk there and back. It's way too hot to walk anywhere else, a bus pass is $5.25, most buses only come once every hour, and if you have to stop at another bus stop, the next bus you were going to take is usually departing while the bus you're currently riding is just pulling up, so you have to find an hour to burn, which usually means frying in the sun trying to read a book.


I only pre-order games from Amazon. Between GameCrazy claiming that I already picked up my copy of Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence and have it on video that they refuse to show me (i.e. stealing my money and making me buy it twice), and Gamestop being... well, I just went there to get used games, but being bombarded by obnoxious salesmen who follow you around a small store and say shit like "Hey, you should pre-order Ghostbusters, you'll get a t-shirt", politely telling them "I'll think about it" when you're clearly not interested, and having them reply "Don't think about it, pre-order it!". Most of the games I buy these days are digital downloads.

Walking into a local shop is overrated. Just order online and be patient. It's not like everybody across the pond is enjoying the "luxury" of going down to the store and picking up a copy the same day. Besides, most game stores here (well, it's pretty much a monopoly, and I'm not sure you can pre-order games from places like Best Buy and Toys R Us) won't bother to have a game for pre-order if it isn't especially popular. Game stores, specialized in selling games, and you can only pre-order what they want you to. Bah.

Go import your game and be happy that's still an option. :)


Now, the price-gouging of digital downloads, that's a problem!

Australia should take advantage of their banning abilities and ban Utilikilts. Time to stop the plague, people.
http://www.utilikilts.com/

Because of public pressure another section of the government has stated they will take over and review the decision themselves if the attonerney-generals (there is one for each state) can't decide by july I think it was, so there may be some hope for us yet.

But yeah, not good :(

Also, on behalf of all Australians I would like to apologise for that tool, Damuna. :)