This is something every country has (no matter where, all have a form of VAT and sales tax) but a majority of nations include VAT within the price of the product whilst in the US that’s calculated upon checkout (so technically you are not paying $789 for a steam deck since you add tax, so that amount alone isn’t final).
So in reality, it’s closer to $820 or a game that’s $80 ends up to $95 but are either purchases possible whilst earning $15 per hour? Take the PS5: it’s ¥97,980 inc. 10% CT ($603) while the same is $650 but closer to $680 or more when you add SALES TAX, you can buy the same console in Japan since taxes are included.
Gaming is massively expensive if you obsessively chase the latest AAA experiences. If you stick to older games and lower end or older hardware then it’s one of the best value hobbies around.
I recently started playing a Multi User Dungeon!
Yooooo! Anything worth reccing? That’s deeply nostalgic, and a friend has been starting dev on one, so it might be worth seeing how they’ve progressed in the decades since MUDs were commonplace
Nah, I’ve barely got My toes wet. The one I’m playing now, I don’t actually think it’s good. But it is fun
Sales tax is a regressive tax that disproportionately feels more expensive if you have lower income. Its the same as a speeding ticket or a fine being ‘the cost of doing buisness’ if you’ve got enough money to throw around.
In Pennsylvania the sales tax is 6%. A PlayStation 5 disc version off amazon new is $559.99, after tax it would cost $593.59. Minimum wage is $7.25/hour. A person making minimum wage would need to work 81.8 hours to pay for a PS5(disc). Forgot to include a game example Wolverine is listed on Amazon for $69.99 after tax it would cost $74.19. At minimum wage it’d take 10.23 hours to pay for it.
81.8 hours is assuming they are not paying income tax… factoring that in, im sure it is over 100 hours. Someone smarter than me can do the math…
Minimum wage has long fallen into the poverty zone in the US. As the saying goes, everything is expensive when you’re poor. And sales tax doesn’t help one bit. It’s a ‘flat’ tax meaning it doesn’t scale with income; a poor person and a billionaire pay the same sales tax for an identical purchase.
Here in South California, the poverty line is $100,000 USD. If you make less than that per year, you are considered poor. Cost of living is horrendous here, so you can imagine that makes everything feel expensive. And its only going to keep getting worse. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear in 10 yeas that its $175k.
If I have to choose between one game and a meal for my family, the game loses every time.
Minimum wage has nothing to do with either.
Game consoles and games are expensive even pre-tax…
Now the quality of a particular game could mean a great ROI on both.
You should see how much games used to cost. Here is a catalog from 1992:
That $59.99 copy of Sim City is the equivalent to $142 today.
Yeah. A lot of people want to complain that games aren’t made like they were in the good old days but don’t want to pay anywhere near the equivalent price.
I’m sorry, but I really don’t understand your second paragraph. I think you’re saying that the PS5 list price in Japan (which includes tax) is about $50 lower than the US (not including tax). But I’m not sure how that translates to US defaultism or being “telling” of…something?
