GTA V Gamers In UK Paid 30% Less For Pre-Orders Than Rest Of Europe

Grand Theft Auto 5 has just launched, but there was one bit of information that didn’t make the headlines. Did you know that people here in the UK were paying around 30% less for their pre-order copies than their European counterparts?

A new report from price comparison website idealo.co.uk discovered this fact pretty quickly thanks to the way the site operates. Using the pre-release prices across its UK and European sister websites in Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Poland, it found that there were substantial differences in the retail prices that were being charged in the UK relative to those on the continent.

While there has often been debate around the world regarding the price of computer games, the evidence shows that some areas have it better or worse than others. For example, German gamers looking to purchase Grand Theft Auto V will have to pay around 34% more for the Xbox 360 edition and 37% more for the PlayStation 3 edition when compared to the UK prices. Even stranger is that some countries charge more for one format than the other, with only France, Poland and the United Kingdom offering identical pricing for both formats (PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360). It is not uncommon for the English language release to be cheaper due to costs associated with translating games, but there were still differences to be found within the Eurozone, although it’s not clear why.

% difference relative to the UK idealo pre-release price:

German and French prices show a near 20% difference, regardless of the fact that both countries use the same currency and have near identical V.A.T. rates (19% vs 19.6% respectively). Yet while the games were cheaper here in the UK we have the highest V.A.T. rate at 20%, if only by a small margin. Some of this pricing between the UK and the rest of Europe could be attributed to currency exchange values, but it still only makes up for a small percentage of the wide price gap.

Prices in GBP (converted via XE.com)

Do you compare your prices before purchase? If you don’t use services like idealo.co.uk you can clearly see that there are some benefits to shopping around, both locally and even in other countries. Leave a comment below and let us know how much you paid for Grand Theft Auto V.

Thank you idealo for providing us with this information.

Images courtesy of idealo.