Anybody used Gamefly?

[RemMomori]

Basically it's a rental service for games where the games are sent to your home, play them for a bit, and send them back. Well you're supposed to send them back but I've kept quite a few now. The ones I kept are Wii Party, Go Vacation, Animal Crossing City Folk, Splatoon 2, and a few more. My mom used to get it in the summer when me and my brothers weren't in school so we would have time to play the games. Now my family no longer uses the service since there aren't many games we want to play that we haven't already bought for our selves.

Speaking of other rentals I used a Netflix(?) rental to play Sonic Colors on the wii, didn't want to keep that one though cause I got stuck on Aquatic Park lol.

 

[Firesquids]

I don't think I've ever rented a video game in my whole life. Even in the days of blockbuster my parents never rented games for me. They always just outright bought games and if they got me something I didn't like, I just wouldn't open it and they would return it for something else. But that didn't happen very often. I think that services like game fly or game pass could be really good if you don't already have an extensive backlog of video games like I do. Definitely a great option to try out a bunch of games and your mom was smart for doing it during the summer while you guys had time to do so.

 

[Neb]

When I was a kid I used them to try games I’d see on IGN or Nintendo Power magazine. Back then all I had was a DS Lite and a Wii, so I simply rented whatever E rated games I could find for those systems. Waiting for the game to come in the mail was always exciting. I never made it far in any game I rented from there since I was still terrible at video games and didn’t know how to use a walkthrough. The only problem I had with the service was how many games were in terrible condition from frequent use. For cartridge based games it wasn’t a huge deal, but for discs it created multiple situations where my Wii simply couldn’t read them from the scratches. Only being able to rent one game at a time was understandable to reduce theft. Getting anything from a previous console generation was a headache though. They never had many copies and they were always being used by everyone. Much like libraries new releases were hard to get due to the long wait list.

I quit using them around a decade ago because my parents made me choose between new releases or keeping the subscription. It’s understandable since gaming is such an expensive hobby.

 

[Flicky]

I used Blockbusters a few times when I was younger. I usually ended up liking the games I played there, so I eventually just drifted away from it and the games were purchased for me outright. These days if I'm uncertain about a game I tend to look for game demos, and if they're not available, then I don't purchase the game unless I can be 100% sure I'll enjoy it.

I don't have enough time to really play games like I used to, so this works fine for me these days.

 

[LuchaSloth]

I used Gamefly a LONG time ago to rent games for the 360/PS3/Wii generation of consoles...and I did actually keep a few of them. - Back then, the service made sense to me...because, there was nothing like Game Pass. Also, stores like Gamestop usually gouged the prices of pre-played games to a stupid level. - I remember some of the prices for keeping Gamepass games actually being pretty enticing at the time...

That said, I ended up cancelling pretty early on...just because I am not a quick person when it comes to playing video games. It didn't make sense to me to pay the monthly fee even though I was barely ever exchanging games. I kept getting too distracted with other things and just sitting on one game or another. - It would have been a good deal if I was quickly playing and returning a bunch of games...but it never worked out that way for me.

 

[Mr_Keroppi]

This post made me remember the ONLY time I have ever rented a game. I normally would only buy games and pretty much am oblivious to most releases so I only ever find them on eBay or a trailer on YouTube. When I was really little though I rented some Wipeout game for the Wii that was too hard for me. I sent it back within 2 days because I didnt like it. I only tried it because of my LOVE FOR THE DS ONE, which is weird because I always forget its existence yet I played that game more than 80% of the games I own

 

[Beanz]

i have never rented a game from gamefly and im too young to have experienced blockbuster. i remember seeing lots of commercials on TV for gamefly but i never used it because all the games i wanted when i was younger were on the wii/or wii u and were two-three years old already so the prices for a used game in gamestop were lower.

 

[JKDOS]

I haven't heard of Gamefly is over 10 years. I used them once back in 2012, but haven't used them since.

Did Gamefly charge you full price for the games you kept, or what happened?

 

[RemMomori]

I haven't heard of Gamefly is over 10 years. I used them once back in 2012, but haven't used them since.

Did Gamefly charge you full price for the games you kept, or what happened?

I think I was charged full price for some games but the other games my mom just reported them as missing and I didn't hear them say anything about it. My mom was the main one with the account and stuff so I don't know the full details.

 

[Croconaw]

I’ve only rented a few games, but not from Gamefly. I rented the Gamecube version of Animal Crossing so much from a video game rental store that the employees just gave it to me. They knew I was obsessed with that game. It was my escape from the real world. It was a place I felt like I belonged, being bullied in school and whatnot.

 

[Sorrelfox]

Oh, wow, GameFly. A blast from the past. I’d always see the commercials on TV as a little kid and dream of using the free trial to get a bunch of free games from them lol

 

[Cress]

Never used Gamefly myself. I've only rented 2 games in my life, and both were through Redbox which was a headache to use, which explains why I only used it twice :p

 

[~Kilza~]

I've never used GameFly and never felt the need to. While I remember renting video games a ton growing up from actual brick-and-mortar stores, my family stopped doing that around 2007 when the Wii came out. I definitely didn't mind renting games as a kid since it allowed me to try more games than maybe I would've played otherwise and thus figure out which games I did/didn't enjoy playing. But these days I'd rather just outright own the games I play and be able to play at my own pace than feel restricted to try and play it within a certain timeframe.