Australian Steam Games Are About to Get a Flat 10% Price Increase

As if games in Australia aren’t already expensive enough, they are about to be subject to the country’s 10% goods and services tax.

Video games in Australia are already considerably more expensive than their American counterparts, for almost no reason at all. I’m afraid it’s only going to get worse before it gets better, as a new ruling from the Australian Government is forcing all overseas digital distributers to attach the 10% goods and services tax to their products that physical goods are subject to.

In an e-mail sent out to Steam developers, Valve stated:

The VAT tax amount will be included in the advertised price of your product, just like VAT is currently treated in the EU. This means the customer will pay the price displayed on the storefront, and the tax will be separated out afterwards.

While it is possible that publishers will simply adjust the price of their games to match the retail price and absorb the 10% tax increase, it’s likely that games will simply get 10% more expensive when purchased via Steam.

The rollout of the tax is slated for July, so get your games before then!

Source: Kotaku