HORRY SHEE Steam!

That sucks. Sorry to hear it. Hope 2013 brings some positive surprises for you :)

I've done enough travelling to know that the myth of the streets of NA being paved with gold is simply that - a myth. All I am saying is that NZ/AUS/US price differences cannot be justified on a basis of disposable income or individual wealth of the residents of these countries.

There is also a simplistic line of reasoning that is sometimes trotted out in these discussions which assumes some sort of parity between currencies (ie 1 US dollar = 1 AU dollar = 1 NZ dollar). The truth is that if disregarding exchange rates in favour of numbers or a currency unit were truly a viable way of measuring wealth, ordinary Zimbabweans would be among the richest people in the world, since these people routinely carry around trillion dollar notes...

While the minimum wage is a bit higher here (US$8.90 compared to US$6.00 for you), significantly higher PAYE taxes mean that what makes it into a minimum wage earner's pocket won't be all that much more.

Other costs and taxes are also much higher here. For instance, add in vastly higher petrol prices (BC, CA pays around C$1.03 per litre; New Zealanders pay $NZ 2.18 per litre for 95 octane petrol (C$1.79). A large chunk of the difference is tax.

I don't mean to whinge, because having lived in a few countries, I love it here. I just want to disprove the fallacy that is so often trotted out on these forums (not necessarily by you, I hasten to add) about NZ deserving higher Steam prices because we are so obscenely rich in comparison to other poorer, less developed nations such as the USA, UK, South Korea, Japan and Quatar...