301: No Later Than Monday

Danpascooch

Zombie Specialist
Apr 16, 2009
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At $10 a rental for Blockbuster, good fucking riddance, if it's really a big deal subscribe to GameFly.
 

CheckD3

New member
Dec 9, 2009
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As a Blockbuster employee and avid game, I'm upset at the state of my employeer. I wish I could do something to make them realize they need more games sent in, because currently we get at most 2 copies of a 360 game, and 1 of a PS3 game. Wii usually is about the same as PS3, with a single copy of a hot new game. That's a say $60 investment, and the rental for it is currently (with tax included) $9.67, meaning you start making money on the game on the 7th rental and beyond. However, there seem to be about 3 people a week wanting a game, and usually it only gets rented out once a week, meaning it takes at least 2 and a half months to make money on a PS3 game, and a month to make money on a 360 game.

I also tell people, trying to get people to preorder games, that preordering at our store rather than gamestop is better, because you can take risks. You put the 5 bucks down to preorder the game, but instead of coming in to buy the game when it comes out, rent it first. If you think it's worth the money, you can pick up the game, but if you think you won't like it, get the money back, because we will return the money if you change your mind.

The point of this is, it seems like Blockbuster doesn't use games to it's full potential.
 

Jumplion

New member
Mar 10, 2008
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I wish I rented more games, but for some reason I can never bring myself to do so. I like the feeling of owning the game, and it feels that much better when I know I've earned that $60 through hardwork, smart spending, and patience.

I tried out GameFly as well, but it took much too long for them to receive and send the games, sometimes up to two weeks (and I live relatively close to one of the shipping centers!). Netflix does better than that in three days. Though I suppose that is a testament to the whole culture of "here and now".

With all the crazy amount of great games coming out relatively soon, though (Portal 2, L.A. Noire, InFamous 2, etc...), I may just have to resort to renting. There's a Blockbuster still surviving just a few minutes from my house, maybe I can utilize the time...
 

Scars Unseen

^ ^ v v < > < > B A
May 7, 2009
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vxicepickxv said:
Rigs83 said:
XxRyanxX said:
Rigs83 said:
Yeah it's sad seeing all the empty spots those rental joints use to occupy. Worst part is that the big internet providers are trying to destroy Net Neutrality so companies like Netflix, Youtube and Onlive may be prevented from existing in the future.
I doubt that Netflix, Youtube or Onlive would ever be wiped out from the internet. Youtube is owned by Google which is probably the biggest internet provider in all the world. Along that, Netflix is expanding with a wide range of customers who watch their favorite movies and shows constantly like my Dad.
Not to mention that to prevent their function of existing is futile, because they are always needed or liked to a degree of being well-known. So internet providers can never destory the Net Neutrality, but only delay it if they become that successful.

Not to mention that the empty spots those rental joints have are only for those who live near it. We're fortunate to now have places like GameFly to rent games for only $7.95 by mail. However, to buy a game for the price of $60.00 plus tax isn't something to take lightly. To understand this man, you must know how he feels about his subscription being cut off. Which isn't a bad thing, it made him realize that he's been missing out on games thus thanks to him, we now take note about the stores like Blockbuster being 45 miles away since the rental joints are being wiped out in some cases.
I am not worried about Youtube, Netflix or Onlive (I use them as examples of innovative companies that exist now) because they were created now in the time of Net Neutrality I am worried what will happen to the next entrepreneurs that will not be able to compete with established entities that can manipulate the bandwidth to their advantage.
Here's the thing. Net Neutrality is a practice that hasn't been codified into law. There's nothing right now that actually stops an ISP from just stopping all of a specific type of traffic, except potential threats from entities. I'm worried that companies will actually decide they don't actually need to be fair anymore, because who's going to compete against them.

It gets even worse in North Carolina, with the State bill that would make a municipality ISP illegal. That's another story, and I think that should be told mostly though the staff who actually live near there, as opposed to me. I'll just be visiting.
The ISP I work for blocks bittorrent traffic. It's not a practice I like, but there actually is a reason behind it. Until we started blocking it, bittorrent traffic represented nearly 50% of all internet traffic on our network(and it was growing). This is a real problem where we are because we are unable to increase total available bandwidth. It's not a money issue, we just can't do it. What that means is that one type of bandwidth use can increase only at the expense of bandwidth for everything else.

This is something that people don't always think about. Bittorrent, streaming video, streaming gaming(if that ever took off), Steam, etc. use up monstrous amounts of bandwidth. Eventually there is going to be a price for that. For those that have it now, unlimited bandwidth will likely either go away, or will come at a premium. That's going to be the only way that ISPs will be able to justify the cost of laying down the fiber necessary for the future Internet.
 

wizard_joe88

New member
Nov 12, 2010
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This article is weird to me in so many ways, why? Because I used to do the exact same thing before my local blockbuster crashed & burned. Seriously, I'm a high schooler with no job so money is always a problem for me, and I always had to save up for bigger releases (what little money I have left from the traditional Christmas windfall is going towards portal 2, and the allowance I save up from Summer is going towards Skyrim) thanks to blockbuster and my coke rewards (good thing most of my family are heavy coke drinkers!) I could try out I game I wasn't sure of, block buster really helped me find games I enjoyed and stopped me from paying for games that were just "meh" for me, seriously with most of my money being diverted to just two games in what is the space of a few months, I'll miss Blockbuster because I could try out games for free when I just wanted to experiment with titles I haven't played, without it I'm probably not going to be as experimental with game purchases as before.
 

gyroscopeboy

New member
Nov 27, 2010
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Renting games is awesome. It means i avoid the massive, expensive disappointments that accompany 80% of this gen console games.
 

thepyrethatburns

New member
Sep 22, 2010
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Not too much sympathy.

Gamefly has been a better service. Blockbuster had ridiculously short rental times which meant (since I rent before I buy) that I would have to make the game my life for it's rental period. At my age, that isn't a viable option. (I understand that they lengthened the rental times AFTER I switched to Gamefly but that was too little, too late ....... much like their deceptive "No more late fees" campaign or their abortive attempts to launch their own Netflix-like service only to kill that through insistence on retaining iron-fisted control over everything.

It is sad to see it go in a nostalgia way but they've been digging their own grave for years.

Plus, if Extra Credits is right, the idea of physically renting games will become moot soon enough.
 

RDubayoo

New member
Sep 11, 2008
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Meh. Gamefly's worked just fine for me for a very long time. The selection is pretty good, and even if I'm trying to rent a big new release I can rest fairly assured that I'll get it eventually.