>>724948579
in 2010-2015ish the AUD was more than the USD, like 85cents for 1 USD at some points (so if you wanted to buy something that was 100 USD it would cost you 85 AUD), this was after it was quite the opposite for many years at around 90 USD for 1 AUD.
Before this period, when the AUD was lower, it was STILL cheaper for me to buy games from the UK and get them shipped here than it was to buy locally, who cares if I spend $60-70 AUD and like $5-10 shipping when buying the game locally is like $90-100 AUD. When the AUD got stronger and stronger game prices dropped a little bit, but buying a game for $80-90 when the equivalent price should be $45-50 was insane, it was WAY cheaper to just buy shit and get it shipped.
It at least makes sense why games cost how much they do with the AUD being weaker, it isn't that different, but for over 20 years ending a few years ago games were anywhere from 40-110% more expensive and there was no reason to buy games domestically. Steam was hilarious because it often had no regional pricing set depending on the developer, so a game would end up in stores at like $90 on PS3/4 and be on steam for like $40 for PC.
Even PC hardware had huge markups but no where near as bad as games and you had a lot more opportunity to shop around than such fixed pricing stores had for games.
Interestingly enough Australia has a significantly higher percentage of people who games than the US, but having less than 1/11th of the population is a significant number to overcome.
