When Loot Ninja first heard of a video game rental service with no late fees, no mailing fee, and a virtually unlimited stock, we jumped all over it. To be honest, we were one of the first people to sign up for it. We are well within the Level 3 rewards and been there for a few years now. Gamefly was a godsend in the current generations(PS2, Xbox) because there was such a huge stockpiling of games past, present, and future that “out of stock” was almost never seen. Now that Gamefly has become more popular with the huge growth of the gaming industry, they have tried to keep up, but so far have done almost a sub par job.
Gamefly has made some very positive changes over the last year. They have opened a new shipping center in Pittsburgh to help lessen the shipping times and has just recently included New York. They have also remedied their once archaic “in or out of stock” inventory system. Now they have broken it down into Available, High Avail, Medium, Low, and Very Low. This system is beneficial because it does give the user a general idea on whether they will receive their game. Alas, the praise ends there.
The creative minds behind Gamefly have to have a pulse on the gaming community. I really feel that they fail to stockpile the appropriate titles. There are a lot of decent games out there for the next gen systems. About once a month, one or two titles come along that are very hyped. Everyone including myself put this game in our “Q”, and wait until it releases. If you are fortunate enough to get a copy shipped that day, you’re golden. God forbid you have another game out(and not having the 2 game plan), you are SOL. This was the case of me this week. I forgot to mail”The Bigs” back and did so about 2 days too late. Now Bioshock has about a good chance as coming to my house as Lindsey Lohan passing a field sobriety test.
Some of the games go Gold well before their release date. Does Gamefly really need to stock every single game that is coming out? I mean, could they send like 50 copies of Happy Feet back for some Bioshocks. I wrote Gamefly once and asked the same question. They did reply rather quickly and told me that they use the “Q”’s as a way to judge what titles are in high demand. I could be blind, crippled, and crazy to not foresee the demand of Bioshock and other games that have been hyped and previewed for months not too see their potential demand. Especially a game that is supposed to take 25!! hours the first time through. People are going to keep this for a few weeks. Also, the game has no real multiplayer value, so after completion, the game might collect some dust. ALL THE MORE REASON TO RENT IT!
14.95 is not that much a month to pay for renting games. This does seem like a phenomenal amount when there is nothing to rent. Right now my hard earned money is getting no return because the games I want I cannot get. I do believe Gamefly’s sincerity in helping create a better user experience. I also know that there is really no competition in this market outside of Gametap which is a different service altogether. The gaming community is notorious for making their point get across. I just hope Gamefly listens to this plea.
This is one of the reasons I cancelled Gamefly for the time being. There’s a ton of great games coming out this Holiday, but the chances of me getting any of them around release are slim. I cancelled and will rejoin in a few months once there’s a better stock of games I’ll want to play.
If they stock enough that everybody can get a game the first day, then they will have excessive stock during the 2nd wave.
Um let’s see, on level 3 rewards myself (been for over a year). Bioshock was shipped to me a day before it was actually released. Tiger woods 2008 will be here tomorrow, that shipped out on its release date. I know there’s differences in shipping times for areas across the country, but your article is flatly false. Gamefly DOES have competition, not serious but its still competition (gameznflix, boomarang, etc.) And Gamefly is NOT becoming blockbuster. My opinion, Blockbuster tried to become gamefly (online rentals, drop off store) and is failing at that.
I want to rent BioShock, but I cannot because they have no more left. I really do not see how this is false. Calling boomerang competition is like saying soccer is competing with American football for ratings. I understand how the shipping system works. Having to be savvy of release dates and an empty Q and the perfect time should not be a prerequisite when I pay the same money you do.
If you really want to play a game when it releases… try buying it. I understand your disappointment (I doubt I’ll be getting Lair from them when it releases) but I also understand that Gamefly can’t really buy a copy for every single gamer that has a title in their queue… can you imagine how much money they would have to spend on big titles to make that happen?
There’s no way from a business standpoint that could make sense for them.
Seriously, that would be ridiculous. Once the first wave of people finish with it, they would have way to many extra copies. The way they are handling it is perfectly reasonable. You said it yourself, the game doesnt exactly have replayability(what without the multiplayer and all). It’s not like people are going to be rerenting it enough to make Gamefly’s purchase worth it.
The way I handle it is I just fill my Q with loads of games I want to play, past and present. I just put the soon-to-release games at the very top, all of them. So my chances of getting one of them increase, but if I dont get one I will still get a game I haven’t played yet.
I understand what everyone is saying here and htey are all valid points but I think that for the premier titles they should get some extras. They may have to carry some of those items but they will also sell some of them as people may just keep those titles and buy them at a reduced price. Buying games through gamefly is actually very easy and they send you the box and instructions afterwards. It would be interesting to see what the ratios of titles they have, like 10% Rattatouile and 30% Bioshock or do they just get the same amounts of all.
What’s with all the blockbuster hate? I personally use Blockbuster online, and it works great for me. For $20 I get 3 movies out at once, I can return them in-store for free movie rentals (including in-store blu-ray), and I get free video game rentals (monthly coupons) with it. The blockbuster online system works great for my wife and I. So far the only movie I had to wait for was Letters From Iwo Jima (I had to wait about a month for it, I have it now and haven’t watched it yet). Everything else, I get new DVD releases on release day (the most recent for me were TMNT and Blades of Glory).
Blockbuster the store rarely has anything good in stock (except for games), but their online service is actually impressive.
I used to have gamefly, until they basically screwed me over. I would never receive the game they sent me, then placed my account on probation when i had announced them lost in the mail. I went through three months of this, for which they kept on charging me for service. I cancelled my account and they then admitted that they were having problems shipping to certain states. A few weeks ago i tried to sign up again due to the fact that they had opened shipping places nearer, but they told me due to my past account history im not allowed to sign up, even though it wasnt my fault in the first place. From now on i will never refer anyone to Gamefly.
I’ve never even heard of this before, I’ll have to try it out sometime.
I have been a member of Gamefly since Feb. 2007. In that time I have seen drastic improvements in their service. They have added more detail to the availability of titles and, more importantly, opened the Pittsburgh distribution center. I live it Pittsburgh (lucky me) and have seem my ship times improve greatly. If you want that killer title such as Bioshock you will have to be diligent to get your game back to them the day the new title releases. If you miss that date I agree you’re better off buying the game unless you feel like waiting 6 months. In my case I dropped my title in the mail on Monday, they received it Tuesday and shipped Bioshock the same day, and I was playing it on Wednesday. In my opinion service doesn’t get much better than that. Just takes a little effort on your part.
wvu76 – yeah I agree service has gotten bettr but alot of it has to do with timing, you have to time your returns back to coincide with releases if not you get srewed. If your new title releases and you havent sent your game back before hand, chances are that you will not get it. I wonder if they leave some for purchases as well, like leave some behind in case people want ot out right purchase them thru GF.
Gamefly used to be good. The game would ship the day before it was in stores so couple days later you got it, usually in time for weekend. This is not the case any more, the game comes out on tuesday and it doesn’t ship till Thursday or friday which means no chance of playing it on the first weekend.
They opened the new shipping center and now getting a game in the west sucks. Took me 1.5 weeks to get games shipped. I had a open slot and everything. I will be stuck using it, since $60 is just too much for a game.
i never used gameply to rent new games so i wouldnt know about ur little predicament so far ive rented the old ps2 games i used to play when i was 10 or 11 like zone of enders and dmc1 i just dmc1 and im mad because i suck so much that i cant beat the first boss
Money is like manure; it’s not worth a thing unless it’s spread around encouraging young things to grow.