I’ve used GameFly in the past and Ill tell you its not quite the best service around for Game rentals. However, GameFly has just announced a new partnership that allows members access to over 300 (and growing) PC titles to download and play for free. The titles so far range from, Really Old – Meh, but its better than a kick in the pants and could easily help distract you from the fact that you are still waiting for your copy of Battlefield 3 to come in. It also brings an interesting point to think about, the ever looming digital only distribution of the future and if its what people really want. Now Im not saying this makes Gamefly 100% worth the cost of joining, but this is definitely in the right direction to not sucking as much. However, does anybody care or is this too little to late? Any GameFly Members out there excited for this?
It will take a bit more than that to get me to go back to them, but it’s a good start. They need to figure out a way to get games to people faster. I waited FOREVER to get any of the good games from them and finally just gave up. I will say that I do have hopes that they get a lot better and build their distribution methods for the future.
I for one believe that GameFly is a failing plan, and its not entirely their fault. Games just dont hold their value like lets say Movies. Especially current gen games, think about it, Who wants to play a 2 year old game now? Not a lot of people, but to meet demand at the time when it was new GameFly had to have purchased hundreds(if not more) of coppies. So now 2 years later they have a bunch of games that nobody is renting anymore and they have no choice but to sell them on the cheap. Now Im not a biz wiz but unless they are making their money back from the initial purchase of games just in rental membership fees then it sounds like they are losing money, and thats just one game. But who knows, they are still around so they must be doing something right, I just know that something right wasn’t enough to keep me on.
I’ve kind of wondered the same kinds of things Jason, but it does seem like the subscription rental method is a profitable business model. It’s worked for Gamefly so far, Netflix with movies (as part of their business anyway), and now my employer, DISH, has the Blockbuster Movie Pass too. They didn’t keep me as a customer either. It was just too much money for what I was getting. At the time I think I was paying about $15 or $16 a month to rent games. I did try the Blockbuster Movie Pass though and loved it. But it has a lot more going for it. At $10 a month I get movies and games through the mail (like Gamefly and Netflix put together), but I also have the option of taking them into a store to exchange them. I also get unlimited streaming, and a bunch of high definition movie channels. It’s definitely worth a try.
Good luck finding an open Blockbuster store. Also the premise isn’t what is failing, its the fact that when I was with Gamefly I had to wait forever to get any new games, and the only way they can prevent that is to buy more games at release. I’ve done the Blockbuster plan in the past as well and they run into the same problem, plus they dont have nearly the streaming options as Netflix. But who knows Gamefly is still around so they must be solvent somehow…more than I can say about Blockbuster….
No, I understand what you’re saying. I had that problem with Gamefly too. I waited way too long to get a decent game. And I never tried Blockbuster’s old by-mail plan, so I won’t comment on that, but I’m just saying that I haven’t had a problem with the Blockbuster Movie Pass. In fact I bet there’s going to be a lot of improvements in Blockbuster as a whole now that it’s under DISH’s guidance.
As far as finding a Blockbuster that’s open, well that’s only a necessity if you want to take a disc in for an in-store exchange, and sure there were a lot of stores that were closed, but there’s a lot that are still open as well. I actually have one within 2 miles of where I live.
Well, Good luck then to BB and Dish. The quality and useability I have with Netflix is spot on for what I am looking for (this is a gaming blog so connectivity with the Xbox and PS3 is key). Dish will have to give me a lot more then just “the same” if they want me to make a switch. I was actually talking to one of your co-workers awhile ago (here) and if this Blockbuster deal helps makes it possible for me to have a more a-la-carte cable service you may make me interested. But thats just my pipe dream.
I agree. As I said earlier the model is sound on paper but the execution seems to need another of work. They have a great selection of games but the overhead of $50-$60 games makes the available product for delivery to subscribers very low. I can pretty much spend the same amount buying and reselling to GameStop as I would paying their fee every month waiting for the game I really want to become available for me.