Aussie Gamers Canceling GTAIV Preorders
See Full ImageIt has been a bad week for Australian gamers, starting with the announcement of the AU$99.95 Dual Shock 3 ($92 US). Now, things have gotten worse in regards to the biggest release of the year.
According to an article in The Sydney Morning Herald and posted on Digital Life, many gamers in Australia are canceling their Grand Theft Auto IV pre-orders for a couple of reasons. This report comes straight from the mouths of Aussie retailers, apparently, and that's not good news for gaming business down under. First of all, just like the Dual Shock 3, the price of the game is astronomical ($120), and that hasn't gone over well. But when you toss in the fact that Rockstar had to produce a censored version of the game in order to "comply with the Australian classification system, which does have an R18+ rating," gamers have even more incentive to cancel their pre-order. A Rockstar rep refused to say exactly what was cut, but it was enough so the game could get a R15+ rating.
Hence, it's turning out to be cheaper for Australian consumers to import GTAIV from other territories...and it'd be uncut, too. At this point, there's no benefit to purchasing the game in the country (besides being able to play it immediately), but every benefit to importing the blockbuster title. In short, it's not the best situation over there.
Related Game(s): Grand Theft Auto IV
4/16/2008 Ben Dutka
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Comments (7 posts)
Warukyure [Power User]
Thursday, April 17, 2008 @ 1:43:39 AM
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Aust. and UK are always getting the short end of it and its time you should stick up for it.
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Ultimadream
Thursday, April 17, 2008 @ 2:26:52 AM
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ThePoetRazel
Thursday, April 17, 2008 @ 2:39:05 AM
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All it really seems to do is hurt business within the country. Other than that it feels pretty redundant.
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endlessflood
Thursday, April 17, 2008 @ 2:45:23 AM
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Obviously it wouldn't be easy. It would have to be a site with proper journalists who were willing to do the hard yards for that big scoop. Does anybody know of such a gaming site???
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LegioN
Thursday, April 17, 2008 @ 3:20:28 AM
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These things take big movements to change, and it's sad that the right treatment isn't given without having to rant, rave complain and march about it.
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Knightedrik
Thursday, April 17, 2008 @ 4:45:13 AM
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endlessflood
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Thursday, April 17, 2008 @ 1:19:21 AM
I wish R* would tell us if matchmaking was done via disc-region (like most games) or based on IP address (which can be used to figure out geographic region). If it was based on IP address, I think everyone in OZ would celebrate by importing the uncensored version and adding R* to their Xmas card list.