Why Do Videogames Cost So Much In Australia? As a general rule there are three things that Australian video game publishers will not talk about: rumour, speculation and the price of games in the Australian marketplace. But at the moment the pricing issue is at the top of the list -- a topic publishers avoid like the plague. Even those that have the leeway to approach the debate, like Sony's Michael Ephraim, refuse to be drawn on the specifics. But as exchange rates continue to trend in Australia's favour, with the Aussie dollar now above parity compared to its US counterpart, importing from overseas is slowly becoming a more cost effective way of purchasing videogames -- and as it becomes more prevalent, local pricing will eventually become an unavoidable issue for Australian publishers. Sooner or later they'll have to address it, or face the consequences of being forced out of their own market. Parallel Lines "This is an interesting issue," said Dr Mark Melatos, Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney. At a loss with the dead silence from video game publishers on the issue, we contacted Mark, a PhD in economics, for comment on the reasons why videogames cost almost twice as much here as they do in the US, despite currency parity. Mark's area of expertise is international trade policy and theory, so we figured he might know a thing or two -- turns out he does. Apparently the boogie man may be a thing called 'parallel import