Buying DVD's/Games online in Australia

[Biggy]

Anyone here do it a lot? I'm a bit wary of buying online so I'd like to know some trustworthy sites. Thanks.

 

[MaD]

Steam's the best option and the cheapest too

 

[angryangy]

Steam sales are unrivalled and you can pick up new games for less than $10 on any day of the week, but a lot of the time, the big publishers (the ones that get big in-store displays for their next release), put their games on Steam at prices that ensure they still make heaps of money from people not going to the real shops. Another issue is dealing with prices in US dollars, which I'll expand upon later.

You can sometimes save a little by going to the website of your local store and it's a good way to spend those vouchers you got last Christmas, but the real value of buying online is in what's called parallel importing. Such imports undercut Australian prices pretty consistently. One example right now is the upcoming strategy game RUSE. EB lists it at AU$88, while GAME lists it at a web-discounted AU$79. In contrast, Play-Asia list a US copy for US$54.90, while CD WOW sells a European copy for AU$49.95. Steam's price is US$44.99.

It's important to note that USD prices are susceptible to a plunging exchange rate, such as the crash that happened not long ago. At the moment, CD WOW, with fixed AUD prices, would likely be the most cost effective. However, if the exchange rate is over 90 US cents per AUD, the Steam price would be the best.

Another consideration is region and encoding. Obviously this doesn't affect Steam and doesn't really matter to PC games in general. Many consoles and DVD players are now region free, but purchasing an NTSC copy may still cause problems. Ensure your machine can play the media you are buying. With games, you can tell pretty quickly if the box art has a PEGI (European) or ESRB (American) rating. Consider googling a title to see if it is PAL/Region 3 friendly. If you're not sure, don't buy.

The main drawback to buying online is shipping; some items can spend weeks en-route, so it's not a good idea to get a game you're really craving (or to buy as a present with less than a month's notice). Steam's ability to offer games on demand means you get new titles when they're hot; but again, big publishers can undermine this so that a pre-purchased game doesn't "unlock" until days after the retail release.

Of course, there is more than one reason to buy a game on Steam, but by the same token, some people prefer to have a boxed copy.

 

[pcfan123]

Hey Biggy, as long as you order from well known retailers you will be ok. That way you know they will ship you the product and if it is lost in the mail you can always cancel through your credit card company.

Not sure what stores you have there, but if there are online versions of Target. Best Buy. Wal Mart etc they are all safe.

Also remember, that you can always dispute a charge on your credit card, and you never have to pay for something you did not charge or receive

 

[Chewie]

CDWOW is a pretty good site, though they can occasionally take a very long time to arrive.

 

[Biggy]

Thanks a lot guys. I would rep you all if I could.

 

[MaD]

Steam sales are unrivalled and you can pick up new games for less than $10 on any day of the week, but a lot of the time, the big publishers (the ones that get big in-store displays for their next release), put their games on Steam at prices that ensure they still make heaps of money from people not going to the real shops. Another issue is dealing with prices in US dollars, which I'll expand upon later.

You can sometimes save a little by going to the website of your local store and it's a good way to spend those vouchers you got last Christmas, but the real value of buying online is in what's called parallel importing. Such imports undercut Australian prices pretty consistently. One example right now is the upcoming strategy game RUSE. EB lists it at AU$88, while GAME lists it at a web-discounted AU$79. In contrast, Play-Asia list a US copy for US$54.90, while CD WOW sells a European copy for AU$49.95. Steam's price is US$44.99.

It's important to note that USD prices are susceptible to a plunging exchange rate, such as the crash that happened not long ago. At the moment, CD WOW, with fixed AUD prices, would likely be the most cost effective. However, if the exchange rate is over 90 US cents per AUD, the Steam price would be the best.

Another consideration is region and encoding. Obviously this doesn't affect Steam and doesn't really matter to PC games in general. Many consoles and DVD players are now region free, but purchasing an NTSC copy may still cause problems. Ensure your machine can play the media you are buying. With games, you can tell pretty quickly if the box art has a PEGI (European) or ESRB (American) rating. Consider googling a title to see if it is PAL/Region 3 friendly. If you're not sure, don't buy.

The main drawback to buying online is shipping; some items can spend weeks en-route, so it's not a good idea to get a game you're really craving (or to buy as a present with less than a month's notice). Steam's ability to offer games on demand means you get new titles when they're hot; but again, big publishers can undermine this so that a pre-purchased game doesn't "unlock" until days after the retail release.

Of course, there is more than one reason to buy a game on Steam, but by the same token, some people prefer to have a boxed copy.

Wow, thanks for that

 

[drainpipe32]

I order from The Hut. $4 postage to Australia, and the games are cheap. Takes about 9 days for stuff to get to my house.

 

[mattfb]

I order from The Hut. $4 postage to Australia, and the games are cheap. Takes about 9 days for stuff to get to my house.

Battlefield bad company 2 $41!!! You sure postage to Aus is only $4?!?! I love you man!

 

[MaD]

Has anyone bought anythin from CDWow?
How's the service and how long'd it take?

 

[Chewie]

CDWOW have great prices, but in peak times they take ages to deliver. Normally it takes less than a week (Which is still quite a while), but over Christmas, I bought something as a XMas present(two weeks before christmas) and it arrived in the first week of January. I emailed them and they just said that it is very busy around Christmas. But still...two weeks late is pretty horrible. I sent them a very angry letter in reply, and now buy stuff from there on my sister's account

So basically: as long as you're not buying something around christmas, and don't mind waiting a week, they're good.