Game renting services, or, WTF happened to my Blockbuster

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Monk Ed
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Game renting services, or, WTF happened to my Blockbuster

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Postby Monk Ed » Sun Mar 01, 2015 8:54 pm

I was a Blockbuster renter for most of my childhood and on into my adulthood. It started in the form of a weekly trip as a kid to get a game for the weekend, and evolved into an occasional trip as a teen and then an adult to try out a game for a week whenever the whimsy struck. At some point Blockbuster just got to be too bad of a deal, after years of raising their prices, and so I stopped renting from them entirely.

But while the good days lasted, they were good indeed, and I can't find any game rental service that hits that same sweet spot between price and appropriate rental period that Blockbuster did at one time. Redbox's per-day price is too high, and GameFly's rental period is too long. Between the two, GameFly is the only one that's actually viable (because $3 per day for Redbox? Yeah fuckin' right) but to make the price worth it I'd have to think of enough games (and dedicate enough time) to make use of an entire month at a time instead of just a week.

I used to be able to just go rent something for a week for like $6-$8 and be done with it at the end of the week. Is there really nothing that will let me do that anymore? :'(
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Postby IronEvangelion » Sun Mar 01, 2015 9:31 pm

If you have a PS4, Sony's game streaming service PS Now might interest you. Pricing ranges from about $6 to about $8 for 7 days, depending on the game. Just don't go with their hourly rates, those are god awful (as in $5 for 4 hours awful). The service currently consists of mostly PS3 games, but they have a pretty good selection from what I've seen.

Personally I no longer rent games or read reviews for them. If I'm interested in a game, I'll watch a gameplay video of it on Youtube for free, and decide whether or not to buy it based on what I see. It works out pretty well for me when I remember to do it. I just wish I had watched some videos of Shadow of Mordor before I bought it. Might have saved myself $50.
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Postby Reichu » Tue Mar 03, 2015 11:07 am

At least where I live, there's still one place to "rent" games that most people wouldn't think of: the public library. They started stocking titles beginning with the Wii/PS3/XBOX360 era. There might not be much, but at least what's there is free to borrow.

Personally, I don't consume video games quickly enough for the disappearance of rental joints to make any actual difference. When I'm in the mood for new titles, the vast amount of information online means I don't have any real trouble finding stuff that's worth the monetary gamble.

View Original PostIronEvangelion wrote:Personally I no longer rent games or read reviews for them. If I'm interested in a game, I'll watch a gameplay video of it on Youtube for free, and decide whether or not to buy it based on what I see.

Eh, watching a video won't tell you everything you need to know. I've always found it good to scan a few reviews from different places.

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Postby IronEvangelion » Wed Mar 04, 2015 1:32 am

Oddly enough, I get far more useful information from gameplay videos than I do from reviews. I certainly am glad I watched videos of Lightning Returns and Ground Zeroes instead of letting all the people bashing those games in their reviews influence my decision. If I had listened to the reviews I would have missed out on 2 of my favorite games of 2014.
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Postby Reichu » Wed Mar 04, 2015 11:36 am

There's no reason you can't do both. When I personally look for reviews, myself, I try to filter out the obviously biased ones in favor of ones actually interested in being informative and helping you make a purchase decision based on your preferences. They can also mention things like control issues that wouldn't come across in a video.


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