So you know how you can go to one of those Red Box kiosks and rent a movie for a buck? Well now Gamefly is letting you do the same thing for PS3/ 360 games at $2.49 and Wii games at $1.99 a day. Looks like someone is trying to give the brick and mortor rental stores a run for their $9-a-rental money.
The first locations to receive these kiosks are college campuses. I guess GameFly knows who can’t afford purchasing games brand new.
“The kiosk program is a way to extend the GameFly universe into the physical world,” says co-founder and senior vice president of business development and content, Sean Spector. This is an interesting strategy, keeping in mind that businesses like Blockbuster are trying to extend from the physical world into online.
Spector goes on to say that, “Gamers want to play a new game in the first couple of days, and daily rental allows people to try a game out.” After gamers are done “trying out” a game, GameFly is offering a “keep it” feature that is similar to their mail-rental service.
This all appears very convenient, however, when renting a movie for $1 the value comes from completely viewing the film in the same night. With video games, it takes several more nights to complete the 20+ hours of content an average game offers, and that’s not even including multiplayer. So no matter whether you rent from a kiosk or a rental store, it seems you’ll end up paying about $9 anyway to do more than “try it.” “Trying it” is what demos are for.
Anybody agree with me, or on the contrary think this is pure brilliance?
Source: Daily Toreador
This is kind of a rip off for 90% of games that require time.
If you’re going to rent from the kiosk, you might as well sign up for the monthly fee. They should do what blockbuster does and have it so that you can either have the game mailed to you or you can grab one from the kiosk. People would be much more likely sign up for their program that way.
I think it’s cool. I might use one in a pinch, but nothing beats the 2 at time sub for gamefly, best game deal around. The kiosk is a great way to satisfy the people who dont want to wait for the mail. Hey, the more ways to get games the better. I’m interested to see what other things gamefly does with this.
Thankfully i got a bunch of places around me that rent 360 games for a dollar a week, even the new releases . . . so I wouldnt use one of these, although I can see the good in them when you’re stuck with places like movie gallery, family video and blockbuster.
This is a CRAZY idea….
Do you know the problems they are going to have with people who rent these games and never return them??
I’m not going to describe the ways, but I can think of at least 5 ways someone could simply rent a game then cancel their card so it can’t be charged for future fees…
College kids are not dumb, there are a lot of smart kids out there who are going to abuse this system to get a $60 game for $2.50 by keeping the rental and never returning it.
I can’t wait to see one of these near me so I can rip it off!!
Well to use one these you need to have a credit card. You think people just put a few bucks in and get a game?
Wtf, this goes to the guy talking about ripping off Gamefly machines…You are an idiot. I don’t need to explain why you are, just that you are.