[frio]

Living in NZ, we get the regional prices too. It boils down to publishers attempting to protect brick and mortar stores; if a game is no cheaper on Steam, then the thought goes that more people will go to the store and buy it as they see no advantage.

As far as I'm concerned, it's costing them sales. If I want a physical copy of a game - like a Collector's Edition - I'll pay the extra. If I don't, then pricing the digital download that's served off the steam cache at the ISP I work for in the same region just costs them a sale. Case in point right now is Bad Company 2, but the same can be said of Borderlands (nabbed it in the 4-pack preorder for a reasonable price, then at launch it shot to $79.99USD :/) and many other titles.

Basically, it's a compromise I imagine Valve had to make to get large publishers signing with and selling their games on Steam. I'd prefer them to now use some of their critical mass to lean on the next contract they sign and say "we're a competitor to brick/mortar stores, we're losing sales because of your high pricing, and from now on we're going to compete".