One thing that sucks about renting games....

[WCP]

On the one hand, renting games makes a lot of sense financially. You get to try all the newest releases, and you don't have to fork over $59.99 plus tax to try them. There is a really huge downside to it though. One thing that I hate about renting, is that I get this weird feeling that I can't play any other game than the game I'm renting.

It's like.. I feel like I have to play the game that I'm renting, otherwise I'm wasting my money. So, my backlog of shame just sits there and stares at me, while I play a rented game that I'm not very likely to get very far into before I return it and get something else. And why do I have to get something else? Because I'm paying money to a monthly rental deal, and I have this need to feel like I'm making the most of it by trying a different game a week. It's a vicious cycle. Anybody else have this happen?

[The 1 2 P]

I've yet to start my trial gamefly account but when I do you better believe that the two games I get each week will be the main games I play that week. So after those 30 days are up I will have focused most of my attention on the 8 games I played in pairs every one of those 4 weeks.....if that makes any sense.

[Gameguy]

People still rent? I thought that became obsolete with the rise of the internet and ease of piracy.

[WCP]

People still rent? I thought that became obsolete with the rise of the internet and ease of piracy.

Piracy is a whole nuther problem entirely. Piracy is actually even worse then renting, because with Piracy, it's like you have a GameFly warehouse in your living room, and having just about every game at your fingertips means that you will dip your toes into TONS of swimming pools, but you won't get deep into anything. It's a shallow existence. Everytime you sit down to play, you wonder which game should I try this time? It's a greay way to game if you want to see the first 3 hours of every half-way decent game that comes along.

[Streetball 21]

On the one hand, renting games makes a lot of sense financially. You get to try all the newest releases, and you don't have to fork over $59.99 plus tax to try them. There is a really huge downside to it though. One thing that I hate about renting, is that I get this weird feeling that I can't play any other game than the game I'm renting.

It's like.. I feel like I have to play the game that I'm renting, otherwise I'm wasting my money. So, my backlog of shame just sits there and stares at me, while I play a rented game that I'm not very likely to get very far into before I return it and get something else. And why do I have to get something else? Because I'm paying money to a monthly rental deal, and I have this need to feel like I'm making the most of it by trying a different game a week. It's a vicious cycle. Anybody else have this happen?

I do the same thing. I'm focused on that game, and nothing else. I feel like I have to get my 8 dollars worth lol. I last did this with Red Dead Redemption...didn't beat it, but played the hell out of it.

[Press_Start]

Yeah, when my bro and I discovered "rental games", every weekend was a barrel of fun and a discovery in lots of interesting obscure games. Whether we beat the game or not, didn't matter (though we sure as hell tried). Playing and enjoying the game is what matters but if you're forcing yourself just for sake of squeezing every penny's worth and feeling bad about it in the end, maybe it's time to rethink and find a fresh, healthier new perspective.

Just my two cents.

[megasdkirby]

A few years ago, I had rented Dino Crisis for PSone at Video Avenue. It was a three day rental (rent Saturday, return Monday), and I spent those three days laying like mad.

Unfortunately, I forced myself to finish the game, and I did on the last day, at around 1am in the morning.

The outcome? Although I was happy that I finished the game, I ended up hating it as well. I purchased it a short time later...and it has sit in my collection gathering dust all this time.

My suggestion is not to force yourself to finish a title, just to enjoy it. If you don't finish it, but you liked it, then it's great to get it and continue.

Ah, it was great renting SMS games back in the day. Too bad such stores no longer exist and/or are no longer economically feasible.

[Dr. Dib]

I always felt the same way. Even if the game I rented made me want to play another game, I always forced myself to play the game I rented. This was occasionally a hard task when my brothers and I would rent separate games and each have to work out who played what first.

Of course I haven't rented a game since November 2006 and that game I rented was Call of Duty 3 for the Wii. And yes, I did make sure I played that exclusively until the rental period was up.

[The 1 2 P]

I've been waiting forever to use my trial month of Gamefly but many of the games I wanted to play kept getting pushed back. But next month Crysis 2 and Fear 3 should both be out and then theres several other games from last year that released during the holidays that I want to play. So March is going to be rental month for me.

[Oobgarm]

I've got both LittleBigPlanet 2 and God of War III from Gamefly, and I've not touched them yet. I really want to play them both, but I always find myself going back to a small handful of my backlog.

[Retro Legends]

I have yet to try gamefly but if its anything like my netflix account... Yikes, i find my self with 2 movies and feel so obligated to watch them right away to try to get more movies, so i can maximize my monthly fee. I find myself sometimes not enjoying them as i should. I cant imagine video games, some games are easy 15 to 20 hours. I couldnt see myself rushing through a game and not enjoying the game for what its worth.

[Rob2600]

Piracy is actually even worse then renting, because with Piracy, it's like you have a GameFly warehouse in your living room, and having just about every game at your fingertips means that you will dip your toes into TONS of swimming pools, but you won't get deep into anything. It's a shallow existence. Everytime you sit down to play, you wonder which game should I try this time? It's a greay way to game if you want to see the first 3 hours of every half-way decent game that comes along.

Excellent point. I knew people who had Netflix accounts and every time a new DVD arrived in the mail, they copied it and added it to their DVD library.

Them: "Check this out, I have 200 DVDs sitting on my shelf!"

Me: "Wow, you've seen all of these movies?"

Them: "No, but they're here if I ever want to."

Four years later, 99% of their copied DVD collections are still sitting there on the self, never watched.

Piracy quickly turns into digital hoarding. Back in the days of the original Napster, people used to download gigabytes worth of music that they never, ever listened to. It became an addiction. The music didn't matter, it was the thrill of the hunt and the sense of accomplishment of having every song ever released. The same goes for copying DVDs, copying disc-based games, and downloading ROMs.

Wikipedia - Digital Hoarding (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_hoarding#Digital_Hoarding)

[Polygon]

I know the feeling. It's why I canceled my GameFly account a month after starting it.

[Gameguy]

Excellent point. I knew people who had Netflix accounts and every time a new DVD arrived in the mail, they copied it and added it to their DVD library.

Them: "Check this out, I have 200 DVDs sitting on my shelf!"

Me: "Wow, you've seen all of these movies?"

Them: "No, but they're here if I ever want to."

Four years later, 99% of their copied DVD collections are still sitting there on the self, never watched.

Piracy quickly turns into digital hoarding. Back in the days of the original Napster, people used to download gigabytes worth of music that they never, ever listened to. It became an addiction. The music didn't matter, it was the thrill of the hunt and the sense of accomplishment of having every song ever released. The same goes for copying DVDs, copying disc-based games, and downloading ROMs.

Wikipedia - Digital Hoarding (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_hoarding#Digital_Hoarding)
It's completely different than people hoping to collect complete collections for a console, I'm sure anyone who has a complete NES collection plays everything on a daily basis. LOL

In any case copying DVDs from Netflix isn't what I meant. Why would people still pay to borrow a movie or game instead of downloading it and erasing it later instead. I don't bother with that as I actually like collecting legit copies of stuff, but the last time I rented anything was VHS tapes that were out of print and impossible to find anywhere else(this was before I had internet access). Maybe if you don't have much bandwidth, but otherwise I don't get it.

[Rob2600]

In any case copying DVDs from Netflix isn't what I meant. Why would people still pay to borrow a movie or game instead of downloading it and erasing it later instead. ... Maybe if you don't have much bandwidth, but otherwise I don't get it.

I know digital hoarding seems completely irrational, and it is... but it definitely exists. I know so many people who became addicted to pirating DVDs, video games, and music.

In addition to the Netflix and Napster examples in my previous post, I worked at Electronics Boutique and every night, the assistant manager took home a handful of PlayStation games and copied them. After a few months, he had copied hundreds of PlayStation games. The man never played 99% of these games, but it became a habit, an addiction. (Eventually, he got caught and fired... over what? A stupid addiction to copying games he never played.)

It goes back to what WCP posted earlier: in many cases, piracy = massive collections of games, movies, and songs, but not enjoying them on a deep level. Too many titles to choose from; it's entertainment ADD.

And again, the people I know who were copying DVDs and video games weren't doing it because they're huge cinema buffs or game enthusiasts... it simply became an addiction. There's no logic to it.

[Gameguy]

I know digital hoarding exists, it's just not what I was referring to when talking about downloading instead of renting. This thread was about renting games which is why I brought up downloading them. As for hoarding in general, most people with complete collections are hoarders, how many people actually play all of their games when they have hundreds or thousands of them?

You can download a movie or game, record it to DVD-RW(or use flash carts), and erase everything once you've seen/played it. You don't have to keep it, I just never saw the point of paying to rent something and have nothing to show for it once you return it. It's not a different experience compared to seeing a movie in a theater to watching it at home, it's pretty much the same thing. Again, personally I'd rather just buy an actual copy for myself than rent or download anything. I could always sell it later if I didn't want it anymore.

I understanding renting tools, chairs, or equipment that you only need for a short period of time but with movies or games it's all just information these days rather than anything physical.

[dao2]

I wasn't aware there was anything good about renting games :o

[shopkins]

Back in the days of NES and SNES I rented a game just about every weekend. We were way too poor to buy games, but we could swing a $3 rental. I'd usually beat them, too. The trickiest ones were RPGs. Sometimes I couldn't finish them in one weekend so I would try to rent them again and finish them. Sometimes it worked, sometimes another person had rented them in the meantime and deleted your saves and you had to start from scratch.

Another problem with trying to beat RPGs on a weekend rental is that you get to the end severely underleveled. I never actually beat Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy IV or Secret of Mana because my characters couldn't cut the mustard because I didn't have time to grind. I did beat Final Fantasy, the Lufia games, Dragon Warrior III, Crystalis, Soul Blazer, Secret of Evermore, A Link to the Past, and a lot more that you would think wouldn't be a doable as rentals, though.

As for renter's guilt, that's why I cancelled my Gamefly account. I had games I kept for months because I got them and felt like playing something else. I just seemed like I was wasting my money. It didn't force me to play those games I had rented, it just made me feel bad about it.

[Dobie]

I've given Gamefly a try twice now. Its... not like Netflix. At all. Sure, the games come in the mail, and you have a queue. That's about where the similarities end. Gamefly has only a handful of distibution centers. Turn around time for games I found to be a week, sometimes longer. They will overnight your first ever game, so you think, "hey this is great!" But after that, forget speed. Also, your queue... you will have an extremely hard time getting the newest, latest releases. Sometimes I got the 10th or lower game on my list. If you have an old and cheap game on your list at all, you will get that game every time.

You can game the system somewhat and get the new releases by deleting everything from your queue except for the title you want, but you have to time the return of your other game just right, otherwise you will have no game sent at all. They will not notify you about the lack of a game being sent.

In short... I would not recommend Gamefly. I had the service for six months, and 3 months respectively. Last try was maybe 9 months ago. Unless they change their business model and distribution methods, I will not try again.

[LiquidPolicenaut]

I actually have always loved renting games. It always gave me that chance to try out a game and see if i would like it or not or also give a chance to a game I may have overlooked. As for Gamefly, I love it. True, the shipping times average around 3-4 days for me, but I usually get the games I want when they are released, and, if I want to buy it, their "Keep It" prices are great. I have gotten a good number of games at one hell of a discount and the boxes/manuals are always new when they ship it out to you. I personally recommend them

[WCP]

I wasn't aware there was anything good about renting games :o


You want to know what's even crazier than renting games? I actually know people that will buy 2 or 3 brand new games every single month, for full price mind you, and then they might play one of those games, but they will have a stack of games in their collection that are still factory sealed, that they bought on the day of release and never got around to playing. To me, that is batshit insane, but maybe that's just me.

There are few things that depreciate faster than a brand new video game. You average game is $59.99 plus tax, which comes out to just about 65 smackers. Obviously, it depends on the tax rate where you live, but you get the idea. Well, about 14 days after the game is released, you can usually find it on Craigslist for about 45 bucks, or less. 14 FREAKING DAYS!

It just doesn't make that much sense to buy something for $65, only to watch it's value drop 30 percent in a mere two weeks time. Now, I know that some people will buy it on day 1, and then they play the hell out of the game for two weeks, get everything they can out of the game that they are interested in, and then they sell it on Craigslist (or Ebay) while the value is still pretty good, and I can kinda understand that, but it's just so bizarre that some of my buddies have all these sealed games stacking up on the shelves, depreciating in value as every single day goes by.

I ask them why would they buy a game and not play it? The answer is usually something like, "We'll, I'm really interested in game X, but I have a couple of other games to finish first, but I wanted to get it right when it came out, because I pre-ordered it ". Something like that. Then I ask them, well, why don't you wait until you've finished the other games that you need to finish first and then buy the game, you might even get it on sale by waiting a little while, and they usually just shrug their shoulders.

[shopkins]

I've given Gamefly a try twice now. Its... not like Netflix. At all. Sure, the games come in the mail, and you have a queue. That's about where the similarities end. Gamefly has only a handful of distibution centers. Turn around time for games I found to be a week, sometimes longer. They will overnight your first ever game, so you think, "hey this is great!" But after that, forget speed. Also, your queue... you will have an extremely hard time getting the newest, latest releases. Sometimes I got the 10th or lower game on my list. If you have an old and cheap game on your list at all, you will get that game every time.

You can game the system somewhat and get the new releases by deleting everything from your queue except for the title you want, but you have to time the return of your other game just right, otherwise you will have no game sent at all. They will not notify you about the lack of a game being sent.

In short... I would not recommend Gamefly. I had the service for six months, and 3 months respectively. Last try was maybe 9 months ago. Unless they change their business model and distribution methods, I will not try again.

I had the same problems. Maybe it's where I live, but the wait was long. And I put one game at the top of my list, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, for the whole time I had the service and they never sent it to me.

I did manage to get to play a couple of relatively hard to find games through the service, though. Rule of the Rose and Fatal Frame IV.

[SpaceHarrier]

My rental philosophy was always "I just wanna try it." I rarely actually tried to beat a game within the rental period -- if I like it -- then I'd surely purchase it immediately (after renting). As such, I haven't rented games since late 2007 when a local rental chain called Game Square closed down. They seemed to be the only ones in town that rented by the day, for a couple bucks, as opposed to Blockbuster. I don't wanna pay 1/5 the total price of a game and have it for a week or more if I am going to buy it anyway. And if it sucks, well I ALSO don't want it for a week!

[Icarus Moonsight]

2-day rentals were awesome but only if it cost a buck or two. I don't know of any place that does that now, and the mail services I didn't like (only tried Blockbuster Net Movies for a few months). I'd rather do some research and recon on games, to drastically narrow the field, and buy them outright, preferably new, as cheaply as possible. RedBox games might get some business from me, but it's only movies at the kiosks in my area now. I do use those every week to see new releases rather than go to theaters.

While in this mode, my backlog remains healthy and stocked. I don't see a need to rent, even if it is $10 or less a month. That's a game owned per month right there, perhaps two. Maybe if I only played new stuff, and I actually owned all the systems. Then maybe it would be worthwhile. Somehow, I doubt it though. I already have a small collection of new 360 and PS3 games that I got for around $10-15 each. I haven't paid more than $40 for a recent released game in a very long time. Most are bought at $20 or less.

With renting, you have to recognize the fact that you are paying for a service, not a tangible product. You have to make your own calculations based on your personal evaluations and use. I prefer to own, because while use is real nice, I get more value by having disposal as well. By value I mean I don't feel pressured to get through something if I'm not into it at that time. I just shelf it, or sell it. Cyclical rental contracts are not for me. I might not even touch a game system for a week, sometimes longer.

[Jorpho]

I used to live near a place that rented DS games for a reasonable price. I used it primarily for the first two Professor Layton games, which are pretty much tailor-made for rental.

I agree that renting a game is one way to actually make sure that I play through the game to get my money's worth, whereas I have too many quality games that I've purchased (very rarely for more than $20, mind you) that I've never gotten around to opening, much less playing. But I also agree that something of the experience is lost when one focuses on a single game intently for a brief period of time. It kind of makes me reluctant to rent a Wii with Super Mario Galaxy - I probably could hack through the game in a weekend, but from what little time I've spent with it, I think it's best savored.