It’s been over a week since the official India release of the latest The Sims 2 expansion pack, Open for Business (OFB). However, the game is nowhere to be seen in the market.
The reason, if my contact is to be believed, OFB and a couple of other games are stuck at Customs at Mumbai airport. While other newer games are coming through, the Customs people allegedly want a bribe to release OFB and its companioins.
With the union budget coming into effect from 1 April, new taxes will be applicable on packaged software. So the distributor is getting screwed at the moment: either pay up (a bribe) now to have your stuff released before that; or be forced to pay the legal (higher) taxes and have to put a bigger price tag on the game.
As for the gamer, who cares?
Now that explains why we call ourselves an IT super power.
~PD
Sad! I guess the Finance Minister and the Customs department should hoist the Jolly Roger above their offices – they sure are paving the way for piracy. Just how much the finance ministry knows about IT can be sensed from the fact that it goes out of its way to provide cheaper hardware even while increasing the price of the software necessary to run it. A bit like slashing the prices of cars and upping the price of petrol. Lunacy!
I shall play OFB extra long just for you!
Beat them up, I say! In Mumbai that should be easy. Just pay someone else to do it–the exact amount demanded in bribe.
Hullo Jan! Random not-related-to-your-blog-post-comment.
Haven’t seen you in ages, so I thought I’d pop by. 😉