@foxhound_fox: If the markup was applied at the same rate it would be over $150 AUD for a game ($60USD * 2x price * currency conversion).... this markup is unprecedented.

I see what you mean about UK / Aus markets, though. Gamespot is probably the largest game journalism site that does localised content for Aussies, its just our country has a small gamer market of our 20 something million population. Others do Aussie content but Gamespot does it better, and has more competitions etc.

@The_Last_Ride: I watched half a Lobby before on YT and noticed that Danny stated AU is only .05% of the total GS demographic and they dont care about us (he said facetiously). Its actually interesting data though, as I had always assumed we must have been a higher markup % since there was a GS AU office.

With these facts, its honestly surprising they cover as much AU content as they do. I see your point.

@Treflis: Similar to how Far Cry : Blood Dragon wasnt DLC?

I think its splitting hairs to not call this kind of thing DLC. Its a different model for doing DLC where its a standalone DLC product. Just because you move game content in a 100% identical game engine out of the game menu and into a standalone product doesnt make it non-dlc. Its a good discussion topic, but has nothing to do with the contention of the OP. For instance, Bioshock's final 2 part DLC, which was accessed from the game menu, was similar, but 2K decided to label the whole thing as DLC througout the entire marketing campaign. Or what about dishonored DLC. That 'standalone' wasnt DLC?

Because I've been following carmac, I know that this game is build on IDTech5 (modified version, there were a few tweaks). The 'standalone' product is going to have more or less the same amount of tweaks to the original campaign as Bioshock or dishonored did in theirs, where you might have slightly different abilities/mechanics/weapons, but its essentially the same game underneath. The entire industry calls it DLC, I'd be inclined to say you are valid in calling it DLC or a standalone game 1.5. Its not a "new" game though, everybody would agree there, as it implies a degree of iteration with a whole new development cycle.

But to the topic, how does that in any way relate to whats in the thread. In fact, it probably warrants investigation even moreso because there has have been 0 AAA releases for brand new or 'standalone DLC' in the past 12 months that have been literally priced 100% more from the US counterpart version, it can get close, but never this close.

What constitutes DLC and what constitutes game version 1.5 is a good discussion but not for this thread. The question is whether gamers should be annoyed at the most aggressive pricing model for Aussie's weve seen from a AAA to date, standalone product or no.

I would love to see GS do a piece on why a beloved publisher like Bethesda chooses to markup the Wolfenstien DLC by 100% for Aussies.

I mean, AU must be at least in the top GS 5 demographics, and we havnt seen an AU pricing piece of journalism since the EB Expo video interviews several years ago. This is also one of the most aggregious recent pricing issues that is in my opinion a scandal waiting to be uncovered if anybody would look.

So, its literally $20 USD for US, $40 USD for AU, thats not currency conversion, thats a straight USD pricing comparison. Take out 10% for our sales tax, and its very close to a 90% markup.

Working on fixed $$$ margins rather than % is just plain greedy. If its something that Bethesda are claiming is being forced on them by EB Games, its pissing off all the gaming advocates to win some what is probably a very small volume of mum and dad and casual customers - its unnecessary and importantly it rude to all their existing customers.

We know that Bethesda has brand advocacy and equity. They dont need to bend the knee to to EB Games, especially when you would estimate most DLC sales would occur via digital and without EB anyway. On these grounds, I infer it HAS to be Bethesda's greed as a publisher, not external/environment factors.

Alternatively, perhaps it has nothing to do with retail distribution channel pressures. Is it Bethesda looking at Aussies Consumer Price Index (which by the way is NOWHERE near 100% especially due to the fact that the cost of living is much higher so there is affordability to consider), and just thinking... they'll pay that?

Was it the markups they had on Skyrim that told them the fanboys will buy it at whatever price they set. I do remember Skyrim two's two story DLC's being marked up, I cant remember how by much... So they think we earn more, we've paid 50-75% markups before... therefore lets try marking up by 100% and see how we go until the first discount round.

What is for certain is Bethesda is probably the most well known/largest volume publisher with extreme pricing markups for Aussies and I would love to see them at least answer from a PR sense what is going through their mind. If you try and create buzz on something like /r/gaming on reddit, Bethesda's PR is likely to just ignore the question as there is not going to be a good answer for their anti-consumer behavior in any circumstance. It has to be a professional establishment to tackle the issue.

If anybody takes the time to journalism the hell out of this you would gain decent respect from your AU readers.

Is it against the rules of the commenting system to mention a site like whirlpool via name rather than the actual link? I'm wondering whether that was the reason the comment in question was deleted... also... you have mentioned 'spam' as a deletion in the past. Yet as you cant post hyperlinks, i can only assume there could be 'spam' keywords.

I just noticed another comment dissappeared this evening. It was in a discussion on ME3 multiplayer / DAI multiplayer. I mentioned that I had written a fairly innovative post on reddit regarding using tri-def 3d and the 4k texture resolution packs for ME3, which got me back in and a tried the multiplayer. (I can assure you this is one amazing pc mod as even the makers of tri-def 3d in our email correspondence told me it was one of the most awesome things they had ever heard of, nor had it been written/blogged about before i made my post).

No link, just said you can "search for my post on reddit if you want to find the tridef 3d + 4k texture guide". Thats deleted for spam? I can kind of understand that being deleted in that context (sorta, as /r/masseffect is probably considered competition to Gamespot).

However, when i mentioned whirlpool by name in the OP above...there is no way a user is going to find out the important information on buying a PS4 through amazon to save the $150 dollars through gamespot. The best thing any user can do is go to whirlpool and read the experiences of users to make an informed choice. If GS did write about this, it would be asking for trouble. Advising users en-mass about a purchase decision of that much money is just going to cause backlast. You need a community/forum setting and then a user can look at the mass consensus and make a decision with 'caveat emptor' in mind.

If these kinds of comments are being automatically deleted then GS is doing a disservice to users because they cant ALWAYS provide the information a gamer needs, for local issues... unless gamespot want to change the focus onto forums instead of trollbait comment sections.. a user NEEDS whirlpool to make certain informed choices be it about ISPS.... Hardware Support and in this case a purchase decision. I think its going overboard to ban the names of these places outright.

I have a question regarding comment deletion by moderation on the livefyre comment system.

Other than occasional (probably lame), attempts at being funny. I will generally participate in attempts in informed discussions on the articles at hand in comment sections.

Occasionally, I will provide researched and thought out opinions... only to have the comment deleted. When i say occasionally, I mean over like 5-10 years and througout the various comment systems you've had its happened to me a bunch of times and its always been annoying...

The reason for me writing this forum post was that I was participating in discussion:

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/how-much-did-you-pay-for-this-irresistible-sid-meier-civilization-bundle/1100-6417530/?hubRefSrc=email#lf_comment=135951770

There is a reply to this comment which was deleted. It was a post where I posted some additional information on the state of Australian Nextgen games being $80-90 dollars... and the fact that region free games can be purchased for as little as $50 dollars. citing amazon, shipito.. and other sources. Also the decision to buy the entire console offshore which would save as much as $150 dollars.

I even complimented gamespot's localisation to Australia and mentioned that its the ONLY news site that I think did a good job of researching AU game pricing, citing articles at EB Expo's and more.

I dont appreciate spending like 5-10 minutes typing a comment with actual information only to have it deleted. Now. I did finish after the compliment to GS saying "we need somebody like GS to keep the bastards honest".... which is probably the reason for deletion. So theres the background.. heres my contention.

If you want to moderate comments. Why not automatically message the user with the reason a comment is moderated as a priviate message. Hell, you could even implement a warning system to ward off bad behavior which takes the moderation thing further. At least then said user with infration would have a copy of the comment/reply and you could just copy + paste it without the bad word or whatever. What is completely ridiculous is when a moderator (or automatic moderation filter for bad words)... just makes things dissapear.

Thats all i have really, most forums use this, you are using the comment service livefyre, presumably they have API's and this kind of thing would be easy, whether it was somebody doing this manually or automatic.

You type a comment, takes you like 2 minutes because rather than 5 seconds being the 99% of trolls, you think about what you are saying....

click submit.....

Gamespot: Please log in.

User: Sure gamespot, heres my u/p

Gamespot: AUTHENTICATED....COMMENT DELETED...... START AGAIN.

User: F*CK

How hard is it to save the comment pre-login and then either take you back to the existing screen with the comment ready for submission or auto-submit ( i think the site used to do the latter).

What a ridiculous UI/UX experience this, I'm surprised its gone on so long since the launch of new site.

Putting the responsibiliy on users to manage pirate advertising on this web site is inappropriate in my opinion.

As a web developer and with 15 seconds allocated time into processes you can use, they include:

1) Advertising tools you can use to filter this sort of content.

2) Internal measures that can be taken, such as logging ad keywords and manually checking them on intervals, this would yield response time of as little as 15 minutes to remove culprit advertisements after they are flagged by an evolving mechanism that would become more sophisticated over time.

3) Other 100% automated manual methods.

It is not the responisbility of the consumers of this site to ensure Gamespot is being ethical about its advertising strategy, nor is it reasonable that ads remain on this site for the duration that they do.

Here is a copy of my discussion post that lead me to check here.

http://au.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=27457053&msg_id=325363550#325363550

After X duration I may consider contacting game companies who paying you for advertising similataneously to you advertising pirating to see what they think of the matter.