POLL : Do you rent games?

[sportbettor]

I never used to rent.

However that all changed with Blockbuster online.

For $14.99 I get three movies out at a time through there online mail order rental stystem

But here is the kicker. I get two free instore rental coupons a month. These can be used for movies OR games.

And with their elimination of late fees I now can use the coupons for 2 week rentals of each game.

So I basically get 12-15 movies a month through the mail and 2, 2week game rentals all for the juciy price of $14.99

Now I rent the new games, play them and then buy them when they get to $15-$20 (of course ai always used to wait for the price drop but now I get to play them right when the come out also. Its the best of both worlds.)

[Wavelflack]

Last game I rented was Sega Rally for Saturn. This would have been back in 97, I think.

[vulcanjedi]

Yo

I have recently done the online rental thing with yet another place called gamerang.

Seems to be working out great so far. The ship location is not far from me so it doesn't take more than 2 days in transit.

I do have to admit buying the bulk of my games used or discounted. I'll pay $2.99 for anything I don't have

But I am not plunking down $35 for a DS game until I try it.

VJ

[DigitalSpace]

Very rarely. In fact, I've only rented games two times.

Sometime during the heyday of the 16-bit era (I honestly can't remember how many years back), my mom had a Rent 1 get 1 free coupon for Hollywood Video, and decided to let me rent two games since I was doing good in school. I wound up renting Jurassic Park and Virtual Bart for the SNES for a week. The second time was in 2002, when my mom had a similar coupon for video game rentals at Blockbuster, and I rented Rayman 2 and Simpsons Road Rage for the PS2 for a week.

I own every one of those games now except for Simpsons Road Rage, which I'll probably get someday. I don't like to rent because I have so many other games to play through, and it's not too hard to get a new game for my collection for the price of a rental, if not a couple bucks more.

[goatdan]

I voted "no," but I don't think this is the board you should be asking. Here is my reasoning:

I voted no because I can't find it in me to buy a game for more than $20.00 now period. In fact, even if I find a game for $20.00 that I want, I'll probably wait until I can get it cheaper. I want to get Sonic Heroes, Viewtiful Joe 2 and one other game that I forget right now for $17.99 used at EB, but I'm waiting until they get a buy-two, get-one free sale because I don't want to pay even $15ish after discount for them.

I figure that if most of my game purchases are $10.00 or less, if I am paying $4 or $5 to rent, it is useless to me. On top of that, with the specials that EB runs, if I buy a game for $8.00, play it and beat it, and then sell it during a special trade-in time, I'll get a bonus $5.00 back with it, so it ends up being cheaper than a rental game.

Now... all of that having been said, I think that if I was into more expensive games or if it was easier to get really cheap games, I'd be all over renting. But it isn't around here. If I could rent a new $20.00 release for $1.00 for a day, $1.50 for three or $2.00 for a week, I'd be all about it. I can't. I end up paying $4.00-$5.00 to rent that game. I think that if you did a rental cost based on the value of the game, you could make it better for everyone involved. Maybe Halo 2 for a week would be $5.00, I would definitely rent Halo 2, a game that I otherwise have no interest in.

So basically, it has to be cheap and it has to be in line with the actual game's price. Perhaps you could have three or four pay scales for rentals based on how much the game was released for.

You wouldn't make your money back from the purchase of games as quickly (at $5.00 a week, Halo 2 would have to be rented for 10 weeks to "break even" not including labor costs and other fun stuff), but that is doable. You also would have to rent MLB 2K5 for 10 weeks at $2.00.

The big "ace in the hole" would be that if the game wasn't doing well, you could sell it at a cheaper price (lets say after a month where it was rented three times, you sell Halo 2 for $45.00). It would be possible to do.

So anyway, no I don't rent games... but yes I would if the prices were more in line... How it is now though, it simply isn't worth it for me when I'm only paying $5.00 to "rent" a game from EB or GameStop with the trade in value.

[sportbettor]

I voted "no," but I don't think this is the board you should be asking. Here is my reasoning:

I voted no because I can't find it in me to buy a game for more than $20.00 now period. In fact, even if I find a game for $20.00 that I want, I'll probably wait until I can get it cheaper. I want to get Sonic Heroes, Viewtiful Joe 2 and one other game that I forget right now for $17.99 used at EB, but I'm waiting until they get a buy-two, get-one free sale because I don't want to pay even $15ish after discount for them.

You realize you can buy all $19.99 games for $14.99 with the Gamer Gift Card at Best Buy right? $14.99 is the magic number for me. I almost never pay more than that for a game (except for DS, PSP, GBA games. For some reason Im willing to pay more for portable games than I am for console games)

[Beefy Hits]

I rented games quite a bit in the old NES days, but now it's very seldom.

I only rent if I'm curious enough to play, but not enough to buy it.

Last game I rented was Resident Evil 4.

[bibowski]

I can't believe there have been so many replies to this post. Thanks for all the input, unfortunately it's REALLY been all over the place

People have said "I don't rent, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't...." and "I would rent if the place I was renting from didn't actually make any money from renting". It's definately opened my eyes though.

I'm sure if I manage to offer something that the competition can't, I will do fine. Personally, I'm sick of EB and Best Buy, and I know a lot of other people are too. I really want to give people something they can't. Which is customer service and a good selection of stuff made more than 6 months ago.

[hezeuschrist]

I voted yes. I subscribe to Gamefly and rent lots of games (on average, 2 per week).

If *I* had a store that rented games, I would offer different payment plans. Like a "short" rental period and a longer one. You know what would be even nicer? A dollar a day per game rental fee. Hastings charges $5 for 5 day game rentals, but often I want a game for a single night (if I need to write a review) or two days over the weekend. $5 is too much for that. But other
times, I might want to get an RPG and keep it for a week, and would gladly pay a buck a day for that.

That's the key here. I worked in a video store for 4 years and never rented any games, but I can't tell you how many times I had someone rent something only to return it in a few hours and tell me it sucked. All I could do is sit there and tell them that thats the point of renting. They'd all be far less pissed off if they only wasted a dollar for it and got something else than $7.

[NintendoMan]

Nope, havne't in like 2 years, and never will again!

[DTJAAAAMJSLM]

I haven't rented any games in several years.

[Videogamerdaryll]

Do you rent games?

No................Never..

[Xantan the Foul]

Very rarely... if a game looks good, I'd rather just put the rental cost into buying it. I'm usually fairly easy to pleaase, so I'm rareloy disapointed.

[jdc]

I would never rent a disc-format game or movie......and you're talking to a guy who has had his own videogame store.

My disc machines never give me so much as a single problem because I'd never let a scratched and fingerprinted rental disc anywhere near any system that I own.

For your business...what the hell do you care what happens to people's machines....it's a license to print money and I highly recommend doing it if you want to survive. The margins on new systems and games are so scant that you won't get anywhere without the profits from the sale of used games and rentals.

N64 game rentals are especially golden. The games don't deteriorate and many households still haven't replaced that gaming system. My 5 rental copies of Tony Hawk Pro Skater paid for themselves so many times over that it was staggering. Gameboy systems are good.....but many cartridges tended to go missing due to younger renters.

[kainemaxwell]

I used to back in the day, I rarely do now.

[goatdan]

You realize you can buy all $19.99 games for $14.99 with the Gamer Gift Card at Best Buy right? $14.99 is the magic number for me. I almost never pay more than that for a game (except for DS, PSP, GBA games. For some reason Im willing to pay more for portable games than I am for console games)

I do realize that, but I almost always buy used and I almost always wait for a buy-two, get-one deal, so I'll be getting three games for $30 instead of two.

That having been said, I do have a few of those gamers gift cards waiting around... I think I will be using those on Viewtiful Joe 2 and Sonic Heroes soon

[GrandAmChandler]

I am going to say rarely. The last time I rented a game was when I was incharge of bringing my cube, controllers, and double dash to his house.

Needless to say, 20minutes down the road, I realized I forgot double dash! Doh!

So I made a block buster stop.

[IntvGene]

I never rented games much until Blockbuster (in Canada at least) changed their policy to "No more late fees".

So now...
I rent the game for $8(Cdn) after taxes.
I keep the game for 7 seven days after the game rental period is over.
On the 8th day, Blockbuster charges me the sale price of the game (to my credit card).
I keep the game for another 29 days, and then return it to Blockbuster.
They refund the price of the game (from my credit card) but charge me a restocking fee (currently $1.75 plus taxes)

So basically, I can now rent games for almost a month and a half for less than ten bucks. What games can't I beat in that time, and what games are worth owning after that time? Not many. Of course, I still buy the must-have games, but for the vast majority of games, renting them does just fine. I just beat KOTOR II, and returned it. If I had bought the game from EB and returned it, it would have cost me much more than $10.

[robotriot]

I never rent games, despite there being a place that rents like 20 metres away from my front door. I prefer owning a game, even if it's crap ;)

[bibowski]

bump.

sorry, want more input