Ster-Kinekor pay through your arse

If you are a gamer you will have noticed that the price for console titles (PS3, XBOX, WII) have gone through the roof. While a mere 12 months ago PS3 titles cost in the range of R 500-600, this has now increased to R 800 and in some extreme instances (hello Look & Listen) retailers charge up to R 999 for a game.

One might argue, that the difficult economic times contribute to this, but how is it possible to have the same game sell for EUR 25,00 in the UK? Many games have now decided to legally import games from places such as Shopto.net.

An example: Take Killzone 2 for PS3 which you can pick up for R 470 from Shopto.net (if you add shipping and import tax this comes to about R 600-650). Buy the same game from Look & Listen and you pay R 799 = at least R 200 profit (considering that Shopto.net are not giving their games away for free).

THE PROBLEM: Ster-Kinekor has acknowledged that people import, and has now allegedly started to put pressure on Sars and customs to make the import process more difficult. Although SK has not yet commented, it appears that all PS3-games are now “sent in for verification” once they arrive in the country. SK allegedly claims that those games are pirated and counterfeit (obviously no-one smart working at SK, since Blu-ray discs can not be copied).

All hell is breaking loose now on the Internet about this, and I am adding to it – PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION to voice your frustration.

STER-KINEKOR: Please care to respond — at the moment the PS3ZA-forum alone had 10,000 views and 470 comments about your bad business practises.

UPDATE: Although customs has now come forward and explained that SK has nothing to do with it, and “suspicious” imports are sent to SAFACT (of which SK is a member) to validate if games are legit, it still requires some answers – such as why we pay through our arses for those games locally.