What is the best online videogame rental company?

November 7, 2005 7:58 PM

I've been spending way to much money on crappy video games lately. So I thought I would check out a few online video game rental sites to try before I buy. I've heard gamefly.com and redoctane.com both seem good but don't know what to choose. I'm really not sure what to look for here besides that I'm looking to rent ps2, gamecube, PSP, DS and GBA games What online rental services have you used before? Which do you prefer? Besides gamefly and red octane.. what else is out there?
posted by buybelen to sports, hobbies, & recreation (5 comments total)

Honestly, the best way to try before you buy involves a modchip. You can download games for free from the internet, and then buy them if you like them and want the authentic disk (which will work on XBLive! for example).

Other than that, I haven't used any rental places except for Blockbuster B&M. I too was once frustrated with crappy games, so I only buy games that are used and at a good price (I only own about 5 games).
posted by mr.dan at 8:20 PM on November 7, 2005

I use GameFly, and they've treated me pretty well. Turn-around is a bit slower than NetFlix, but the selection is great, and their customer service is friendly.

Side note: Since I got Gamefly I've had to start walking my outgoing mail up the street to put it in the blue, locked, federal-offence-to-tamper-with USPS kiosk. If I leave a bright orange envelope marked "videogames" in the unlocked out-box in front of my apartment, they seem to disappear. That never happens with Netflix, but apparently the cost difference b/w a $15 DVD and a $50 videogame shifts the balance of honesty for some sticky-fingered neighbor.
posted by jwadhams at 8:25 PM on November 7, 2005

I tried gamefly and was not impressed with their delivery speed at all. I live in a major u.s. city and it was around a 5 to 7 day turn around. Where as netflix is around 2 to 3 days.

The other problem I had with them was the fact that all the popular semi-recent games had a couple week long waiting list. Morrowind for xbox had a long waiting list, and this was a couple months ago!

Anyway if you are sticking to pretty popular games, a blockbuster game pass is an option. You can keep swapping the games out for like 20 bucks a month IIRC.
posted by meta87 at 11:34 PM on November 7, 2005

As an aside, rather than rent, I buy and sell games on ebay. it means I end up spending roughly a rental price to keep the game as long as I want, and if I really like it I can keep it forever. if you don;t like it, then sell it a few days later.
posted by Frasermoo at 5:20 AM on November 8, 2005

I would not recommend any type of Netflix-like service, particularly for video games -- I would recommend peer-sold copies (like Amazon's buy-used option, or half.ebay.com). For half.com, there's no subscription, and you can usually get back close to the same price you paid for it, meaning there is no real investment at all and you still get to play the game as long as you want. It seems like Netflix and similar would make money sense, but I did the math and it really doesn't. It'd make better sense if you got the game if there was free overnight shipping, because the waiting periods of getting the games crucially hinders the value over a standard rental. Plus, the longer you keep a game, the longer you're actually paying for its rental (since you can only have so many at a time).

For instance, I bought Castlevania: Circle of the Moon for GBA for about $14, played it until I was utterly tired of it and sold it back for $12. Shipping is a flat rate, so if shipping initially cost you $2.50, you'll get a shipping reimbursement of $2.50 when you sell it back again to someone else (or whatever the rate half.com set it as, at the time of sale), plus your eBay feedback racks up another point. I had paid a whopping $2 when it boiled down to it, for as long as I wanted to play it. I've done the same with a dozen games or more, and haven't paid a single subscription fee, recurring credit charge, and have about half the time made a profit on playing games I want. It also works for movies -- I wanted to watch the entire Buffy series on DVD, through the process of buying used copies @ half.com, ended up on the plus side. With subscriptions like Netflix and similar, you don't get any money back. I still have all or most of my original investments back in my pocket and have played what and for how long I pleased in like manner.

P.s. I didn't notice Frasermoo's similar suggestion until I'd already typed it out ;-P heh
posted by vanoakenfold at 9:47 AM on November 8, 2005