GameFly Files Complaint Against Postal Service

[Keane Ng]

GameFly Files Complaint Against Postal Service

Online game rental service GameFly has filed a formal complaint against the United States Postal Service, claiming that the USPS has provided rival service Blockbuster with preferential treatment.

Have you ever had a Netflix, Blockbuster or GameFly disc arrive at your doorstep snapped in half? It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. That's just how these things go. All three companies have done their best to prevent the problem, but, according to a complaint filed by GameFly, the USPS won't let GameFly do as much as they can.

"GameFly is not the only mailer to experience significant DVD breakage rates on automated mail processing equipment," the complain states. "In response...the Postal Service has adopted a practice of manually culling out the DVD mailers of two high-volume shippers of DVDs, Netflix and Blockbuster, for special processing."

However, the Postal Service denied GameFly's request to receive the same kind of manual processing for its DVDs that Netflix and Blockbuster receive. That doesn't mean much regarding Netflix, as they don't rent games and aren't GameFly competitors. Blockbuster, on the other hand, is rolling out [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/89404] a game rental service through its Total Access service.

"Because of the preferential treatment given by the Postal Service, [Blockbuster] enjoys a substantial cost advantage in the distribution of its DVDs," GameFly stated.

GameFly explained that they have tried a number of ineffective solutions to the disc breaking problem, and have incurred higher costs from the USPS as a result.

General problems with the USPS aside, if I were GameFly I wouldn't be spending money on lawsuits to get a leg up on Blockbuster. Judging from what we've heard about that company's current financial situation [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/90807-Bad-News-for-Blockbuster], I wouldn't expect them to remain a competitor for too much longer.

(Shacknews [http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/58325])


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[Robyrt]

The lawsuit isn't really to give Gamefly a competitive advantage over Blockbuster. It's to get the Postal Service to manually cull out Gamefly's DVD mailers like they do for the competition. Since they've tried and failed to fix this issue themselves, the only way to fix the broken DVDs issue is for USPS to do it - and this lawsuit is a good way of accomplishing that.

 

[kawligia]

Yeah, even if Blockbuster died tomorrow, Gamefly would have a major cost reduction if the USPS treated them the same way they treat(ed) other similarly situated companies.

 

[Keane Ng]

The lawsuit isn't really to give Gamefly a competitive advantage over Blockbuster. It's to get the Postal Service to manually cull out Gamefly's DVD mailers like they do for the competition. Since they've tried and failed to fix this issue themselves, the only way to fix the broken DVDs issue is for USPS to do it - and this lawsuit is a good way of accomplishing that.

Yeah, even if Blockbuster died tomorrow, Gamefly would have a major cost reduction if the USPS treated them the same way they treat(ed) other similarly situated companies.

Yeah, you guys are both a lot smarter than me. And you wonder why I decided to become a writer and not pursue my dream of founding a business selling silly umbrella hats.

 

[scotth266]

Huh. To my knowledge, the USPS isn't supposed to do anything like that at all. Giving any sort of preferential treatment, I mean.

Then again, all I really know about the postal service is that sticking stamps on animals and mailing them is not cool beans, so I'm hardly an expert with this sort of thing.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Well, I know the Postal Service has taken a really long time with getting some of my games here, along with getting them back, too. So, they could be doing some shady deals in dark alleys with Blockbuster.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Maybe the postal employee's are just busy playing your queued GameFly games, and thats why it's taking so long.

 

[kawligia]

The lawsuit isn't really to give Gamefly a competitive advantage over Blockbuster. It's to get the Postal Service to manually cull out Gamefly's DVD mailers like they do for the competition. Since they've tried and failed to fix this issue themselves, the only way to fix the broken DVDs issue is for USPS to do it - and this lawsuit is a good way of accomplishing that.

Yeah, even if Blockbuster died tomorrow, Gamefly would have a major cost reduction if the USPS treated them the same way they treat(ed) other similarly situated companies.

Yeah, you guys are both a lot smarter than me. And you wonder why I decided to become a writer and not pursue my dream of founding a business selling silly umbrella hats.

Especially since the market for silly hats is wide open. Everyone wants a silly hat but there's just not enough to go around!