As a multi console owner. You can find it hard to purchase all of todays latest games. This is even more painful during the winter holiday season which is typically the biggest time for the Game Industry and Gamers. Now I consider my self a well seasoned gamer who's been gaming for over 20 years now. So as you can imagine, I can burn through a game rather quickly. Which brings me to my biggest point. Length. Its becoming harder and harder to bring my self to buy a game when can beat it and rack up a high count of trophies and achievements in under 10 - 15 hrs.
So its disappointing to spend around $64.00 (including tax) on a new video game that I'll complete and never touch again with in a week. And when you own several consoles you begin to miss out on a lot of good titles that deserve that one play through. Well this has been going on for over a year now and I cant go on any longer missing out on good games. So I decided I'll just go and start renting. At first this seemed like a decent idea, I mean I used to rent all the time when I was a kid. However as I try to get my hands on any title quickly becomes painful. For example, arriving at a video rental store. I find a small selection of games to pick from and not to mention hardly any copies of any titles worth picking up available.
Every town will have tons of video rental places, Movie Gallery, BlockBuster, ect ect. I quickly found my self running around town just to find a single dang game. So when I do find the game, its gonna cost me $7.99 for just a week and a top of that they need my credit card information. Wow. Has renting video games changed. So needless to say trying to rent games has turned in to more of choir then a rewarding service.
Basically to sum up every thing quickly. Renting video games is a !@#$^. Lack of selection, price and availability reminded me why I dont rent in the first place. Also good luck trying to get your hands on any hot release. So after a couple of weeks of frustration I broke down and decided to give Gamefly a try. A renting service that claims to have a large selection, shipped straight to your mail box and keep with out a late fees. It seems to be almost to good be true. But why not, saves me the gas running around town so why not.
I quickly make an account and cough up the $15.99 monthly fee. I make a list of games I want to rent (yeah I spent like an hour putting dozens of titles down) Which is my first biggest happy point. Already i'm really happy with Gamefly. They had almost every thing, from titles 10 years ago, to todays hottest releases. It was really REALLY nice to just sit in the comfort of your home and select from possibly the biggest selection of games all in one place.
The next issue of my mine was availability and shipping. The first title I selected was Alan Wake, it said it was hot in demand and could take some time before I could get it. But its how I wanted to start off my Gamefly adventure so thought why not. With in days I had Alan Wake in my mail box. I think it was 4 business days. Not bad, also was the game was in perfect condition and worked perfectly. A few days later, I completed the game and wrote my review up here on N4G ^ - ^
So again, I was happily pleased this time around. But at that time I didn't think I had experienced enough of Gamefly yet to write up a decent review yet. So I decided to see just how quick the turn around for Gamefly is. So I drop off Alan Wake in the mail box before the carrier arrived on Saturday. I expected at the latest it would arrive at a Gamefly location on Wednesday but it wasn't till Thursday before I was notified of receiving Alan Wake. A little longer then what I would like but I cant quite blame Gamefly for a sluggish Mail service. Later that Thursday I got another email stating Heavy rain (the next title on my list) is now shipping. Excited to see a single day turn around for sure. However I didn't receive Heavy rain till the next Monday. Again I cant really dock Gamefly any points on that since its the mail posting service that does the delivering any how. So on Gamefly end I was pretty satisfied on how quick they are. Mail service...not so much.
Now Gamefly has several different plans that have varies prices. I chose the cheapest that allows you to have 1 game at a time. For a bit more you could have 2 games at time ect ect. Now if i'm quick enough and go though the games fast. I can get about 3 games a month, thats including the roughly estimated time of shipping included. speaking of shipping, its also free. So you don't have to worry about paying for shipping.
Now doing some math in my head, currently in my area, the average cost of renting a game is $6-$8 bucks a pop. So 3 games a month would be $18-$24 monthly. So right there Gamefly already saves me a few bucks at $15.95. Now the Yearly cost of Gamefly would be $191.40. Yeah, not really the cheapest. However if Gamefly saves you the cost of buying a few games then it will quickly pay it self off. Actually all you need to save your self out of buying is 3 games which is around $180 - $190 depending on deals. So in the long run Gamefly can save a gamer a ton of money. Especially my self since I own all three consoles. You can burn money quick. Another great thing is that you can also cancel at any time. So gamefly doesnt hold you down on any contracts. So if your all caught up on your gaming then you can cancel at any time while you await new releases to come out. Can easily save addition cost there too.
The only issue I had with was shipping I cant blame that on Gamefly HOWEVER it would of been really REALLY nice if Gamefly had a better shipping service, for example Express or Priority mail service over basic mail delivery. Then the turn around rate would been far quicker. More Gaming and less waiting. Then the monthly cost wont seem so bad either, Knowing your getting Express/Priority service too.
Over all, we gamers today live in a world thats being flooded with "extra services" that have gamers forking over addition cost (Xbox live, Playstation Plus, DLC, Downloadable titles ect) but really in the end its all about the Games, and thats just what Gamefly does. With out the Games then all those extra shiny services are worthless. I personally would much rather spend a bit more and receive Whole Games then little bits of extras. True, Gamefly isn't for every body nor is it the most cost effective method for those who just want a bit more for their gaming experiences. But for those who don't want to miss out on any title across all systems. Then the choice is simple.
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I think Gamefly is awesome. I've had it for about a year and a half. I thought I'd never say this though. This is my last month with the service. I just realized after beating Dirt 2, there aren't any more games that I really want to play this year. I'm really happy with all the content I'll be getting through OnLive and PS+.
I am near the 24 month mark on Gamefly and wouldn't cancel anytime soon, as I have everything from now until TBD dates next year in my queue already. Once I pick up a PS3 this fall (and stop stealing my cousin's) I will have even more stuff to catch up on. I only buy the games that I am almost sure I will want in my permanent game library, which comes down to 4-6 games a year. So far this year I have only bought ME2, which I have kept, and Red Dead Redemption which I got off Amazon for $40 preordered and trade to Gamefly for $32.50 this week (GF trade ins are really simple too). Everything else has been Gamefly, though most of my purchases come in the fall/holiday timeframe in most years.
I just got Singularity and Naughty Bear in the mail today, a day after they released in stores. Now that I have a firm grip on the mail cycles and how GF times shipping their releases I can normally get a new release in the first couple days if I want it.
I use the 2 game package because normally I can keep one game here and one in the mail as most games don't take that long to go through for me and that way I am not paying Gamefly to have nothing new sitting here for me to play. Last calendar year I cycled 54 games on Gamefly for a total cost of $266, after discounts and friend referrals. That is under $5 a game, the more games you play the better off you are really.
Anyway, I didn't mention in my rambling above that Gamefly is definitely the best way to cut through a big game backlog if you are a late adopter to a console. It helped me dig out some quality games I probably never would have never got around to if I had to buy them, on top of saving me all the money it has over the past couple years.
I personally find Gamefly to be a solid service and its great to just open your mail box and oh look! another game to play. It really does keep you involved with all the games coming out today that I would typically miss.
I've been a member for about 3 years now. Its all worked out for me so far. What I like the most is the SALES events they have. I've bought a lot of greats games for cheap. I rarely buy games from stores now. There idea of a sale is down right pointless compared to gamefly.