{"id":93029,"date":"2016-05-24T17:57:59","date_gmt":"2016-05-24T15:57:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=93029"},"modified":"2016-05-24T17:59:02","modified_gmt":"2016-05-24T15:59:02","slug":"this-is-how-crazy-the-prices-of-games-are-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/business\/93029-this-is-how-crazy-the-prices-of-games-are-in-south-africa","title":{"rendered":"This is how crazy the prices of games are in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

The price of video games in South Africa skyrocketed in the past few months, breaking through the R1,000 barrier for the standard edition of some titles.<\/p>\n

Quantum Break, published and distributed by Microsoft in South Africa, was priced between R1,100<\/strong> and R1,200<\/strong> at launch.<\/p>\n

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, which is published by Activision and distributed by Megarom in South Africa,\u00a0made waves with\u00a0its R1,050 retail pre-order price<\/strong><\/a> on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.<\/p>\n

This is around R150 to R350 more expensive than most other big releases, which are\u00a0usually priced<\/strong><\/a> between R700 and R900.<\/p>\n

On PC, the pre-order price of Infinite Warfare is R850<\/strong>, which is also around R150 to R350 more expensive than other big games.<\/p>\n

The table below summarises the typical prices for games in South Africa.<\/p>\n

Price comparison of games in South Africa<\/h3>\n
\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n
Game prices:\u00a0May 2016<\/div>\n<\/th>\n
\n
PC<\/div>\n<\/th>\n
\n
PlayStation 4<\/div>\n<\/th>\n
\n
Xbox One<\/div>\n<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Doom<\/td>\nR700<\/td>\nR900<\/td>\nR900<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Overwatch<\/td>\nR900<\/td>\nR979<\/td>\nR979<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Battlefield 1 (digital pre-order)<\/td>\nR600<\/td>\nR830<\/td>\nR800<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (pre-order)<\/td>\nR850<\/td>\nR1,050<\/td>\nR1,050<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Uncharted 4<\/td>\n—<\/td>\nR900<\/td>\n—<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Quantum Break<\/td>\nR999<\/td>\n—<\/td>\nR1,100<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Megarom, Apex Interactive, Ster-Kinekor, and Microsoft were asked for comment about the price of games in South Africa, but did not give feedback by the time of publication.<\/p>\n

While the disparity in pricing between the various titles remains unexplained, it is interesting to compare the prices of Call of Duty games over the years.<\/p>\n

The below graph shows how the price of Call of Duty games have steadily increased since 2011.<\/p>\n

Call of Duty prices vs exchange rate<\/h3>\n
\"Call<\/a>

Call of Duty prices from 2010 to 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

It is also interesting to compare the increasing price of Call of Duty games in South Africa to the exchange rate.<\/p>\n

The following graph from Exchange-Rates.org<\/a><\/strong> illustrates how the rand has weakened against the US dollar between January 2010 and May 2016.<\/p>\n

\"Exchange<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

More on game prices in South Africa<\/h3>\n

The South African pricing for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is insane<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The cost of purchasing a new game: PCs, consoles, digital and retail<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The truth behind SA game prices<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New video games have grown very expensive in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":163,"featured_media":93041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,20],"tags":[23,8655],"class_list":["post-93029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-features","tag-call-of-duty","tag-game-prices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/163"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93029"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93049,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93029\/revisions\/93049"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}