anything. Publishers aren't making money over the odds and neither are retailers, yet the consumer still bears the burden of additional cost. Another explanation may be in the way that local distributors do business with their overseas counterparts. Australian distributors, particularly when they represent another company (Mindscape, for example, distributes Konami games in Australia and Namco Bandai distributes Bethesda titles), will often buy their stock directly from their partners in overseas territories like Europe. The cost price of that purchase then determines the retail price in Australia. We put this question to Mark Melatos -- do international companies regularly over charge specific territories for stock? And what would be the benefit of doing that? "There shouldn't be much difference in the consumer price whether the games publisher sells direct into Australia or via its local subsidiary," claims Mark. "However, there is a thing called 'transfer pricing' which multinationals often engage in to minimise their tax bills. "For example," he continues, "imagine Australia has a higher corporate tax rate than the US. Then a US multinational may try to maximise its profit in the US and minimise its Australian profit, thus reducing its overall tax bill." It seems very unlikely that this is the reason for the difference in prices -- there are a number of tax laws that regulate this kind of trading, and all trading must be within market standards. Australians Have To Regulate It turns out that a very real culprit may just be regulation costs. "Things like