Game prices in Israel: Why so expensive?!

A huge reason that I turn to piracy from time to time, is the outrageous prices of games in Israel.
In America, the price of a new fully featured game is 59.99$ (USD), which equal to exactly 227.767 ILS (Israeli Shekel). The price in Israel for a brand new game? Well, depending on the store, it ranges from 280-400 ILS. 280 ILS is equal to exactly 73.7473$. Isn't it a little pricey? Yes, but not outrageous. But remember that this is the cheapest you can find, and the games in Israel NEVER go below 200 ILS! That's 52$ for what could be a 5 year old game! So OK, they are imported from Europe. Understandable. But what about the 400 ILS price tag? Where are the most expensive games found? Take a moment to guess. If you guessed Toys R' Us, well your very wrong. It the one and only- PlayStation Store. Yep. The online store of Sony themselves dare claim your precious 400 ILS-  103.350$!!!!! 
WHY?! It's not even imported! It's an online service! No physical media involved! And those are the new games like Battlefield 3, FIFA 12. Actually, they aren't even THAT new. And besides the price, it's not like there really is a big variety of full retail games available on the Israeli PSS. And those that are considerably old, like a year to two are 369 ILS, about 90$. I'm talking about games like Black Ops, Mass Effect 2. But there is ONE good thing about the Israeli PSS, it goes below the 200 ILS. Games that are older than 2 years are 169. A very good price and probably the best! Games like Borderlands- GOTY, GoW Collection Vol 1 & 2, Motorstorm Apocalypse. The lowest a full game will go, is 99 ILS. And that's rare. I only remember seeing CoD:MW 1 and Crysis 1 with 99 ILS price tag. Other than that the PSN games are from 48 to about 80 ILS and minis I think are from 10-20 ILS. Not too bad, but still the games that are considerably new are pricey as sh@t! You can't really blame me for pirating games! I know it's not  an excuse, but I promise you I wouldn't have done it if I were in the USA.
Every trip to the USA will now consist of at least 10 PS3 games I've been wanting to buy since the last trip.

Good Gaming, Fellow Gamers!

Gaming as a Lifestyle: The Return of the Gamer

Hello fellow web-users!

This is GTarablus making a (hopeful) full return to my blog, Gaming as a Lifestyle.

I haven't posted on here for over a month, due to my return to school and a massive amount of tests, including maths, history and biology. Disgusting, I know. But now with only 3 tests left in the trimester, I have a lot more free time on my hands, which will probably be un-equally divided between the blog- and Skyrim ;).

The break from the blog doesn't mean it was completely out of my mind, I did actually brianstorm a few awesome ideas: A Skyrim review, a new series i'd like to call "A man and his Game" where I will share my personal connection with certain games that for me are much. much more than entertainment, and a few other posts along with every day posts.

On a closing note, I just want to say that I'm making NO promises. I really want this to work, and I'll do my best to make sure it does, but I can't guaranty that another test era won't consume me.

Good Gaming!