can't be worse than NOT offering it.

The appeal of the trade-in-a-movie-at-the-store idea is lost on games if there's an additional price tag affixed. Either work it into the subscription price (by way of opt-in or a different subscription tier) or don't offer it at all.

Good move on Blockbuster's part, but it won't do a thing to help their business. You can receive movies and games by mail, but you can only swap movies in store for free. You can't do the same with games, you'll only get a discount. So you're going to either have a plan, receive games by mail, give Blockbuster more money when you go into the store to swap them (having to pay out of pocket because you only get a discount) or you can be patient and send the game back and get the next one you want.

This is all assuming that the wait time isn't tremendous.

Blockbuster just needs to file chapter 11 and get it over with.

Well.. lets see adding more entertainment based services during a time where people are trying to cut back, but hell, anyone that wants to put some competition out there over Gamefly's service is fine with me.

It would be worth it. Perhaps a game counts at two movie rentals or something similar. In the sense of renting games via mail it's a loss. Games are not as cheap as DVD's and the whole "I never received it" feature simply makes customers keep and/sell their games by claiming they didn't receive it.

I would take it cause Gamefly is slow as hell. If you start an account, it takes a week before you even get the game. So, after you start playing it, you only have 3 weeks left before you have to renew your account. That's not too good.

As much as I can see it as a desperate move to simply compete with netflix, I think it is a good one. As far as I can tell the biggest complaint with Gamefly is their slow turn around due to fewer processing plants than necessary, and I think this would be less of a problem with blockbuster. If I didnt already have netflix I would probably give it a try.

It's not a terrible idea, but hardcore gamers, the ideal market for this kind of thing, simply don't rent their games. And the way gaming is going (with massive increases in live and MMO's) there is no reason for serious gamers to consider this kind of service.

I would be much less trusting of Blockbuster and the USPS to handle a $60 game disc vs. a $5 - $20 DVD and any customer service problems that should arise from it.

I know some people swear by Blockbuster's service, but the time I used their trial subscription, I wasn't impressed. It was a 4 week trial subscription, and I went through 6 discs. 2 of those were replacements for movies that were so scratched up they wouldn't play at all. Another 2 movies were scratched badly, but they played, so long as we skipped the scene where the scratch was. Unfortunately this meant missing the end of one movie entirely. Oh, and then they claimed they didn't get one of the movies I mailed back to them. Fortunately they found it.

So I kept Netflix. In the years I've been with them, I've only had problems with 1 disc, which Netflix immediately mailed a new one to me even before they got the one I had back.

I think this is a great, logical idea, since the brick and morter Blockbusters rent both movies and videos, but I doubt it will do much to lesson Netflix's stranglehold on the internet-based rental market.

Incidentally, why hasn't Netflix considered adding a video game section? I'm sure they could acquire Gamefly if they wanted to. Is the cost-benefit ratio really that low?

@Superawesomerad: Netflix makes their money mostly off of renting "older" titles, not the newer ones. Noone wants to rent a 2 year old video game - they want the latest and greatest. The same isn't mostly true for 90% of movie rentals.

@Superawesomerad: And games are more expensive to produce since they require more memory, more work, with a smaller audience overall. Yes, there are millions of gamers in the U.S., but also many more moviegoers who rent movies.

Ummm...still won't give them a dime of my money.

viva la redbox!

@morgasco: actually, playing video games is a cheap way to entertain. I don't know what a game rental costs, but if you have kids, it's WAY cheaper to have a few of their friends over to play video games than go out to see a movie. The economy is forcing more people to entertain AT HOME, so it's not a bad idea. It could have been better (no charge to exchange for another game in-store, for example), but it's not bad.

I'll give them another try. The only reason I left is because of their weekly policy and pricing changes. Maybe things have settled down there.

@Superawesomerad: Netflix has a working relationship with gamefly for a reason. I have no doubt that if gamefly starts producing a large amount of profit and customer satisfaction NF would be very eager to merge/buyout gamefly. In today's economy NF is just happy to be relatively healthy. making abold play in the game rental market is just BB grasping for straws. I stopped renting games from them when they raised the price to 8.99 per rental. I'd rather roll the dice on a couple games than pay that much to play test them.

I'd rather buy games and sell them once I am done playing them. I just can not get myself to enjoy a game when I know that I have to return it in few days. IMHO Renting movies and renting games are totally different things.

I am still one of the original members of the TotalAccess program since early 2006, and even though the price may have risen from about $15 to $20, I still get my TWO Video Game coupons every month.

It is the reason why I continue the service, three movies at a time, which I can turn into three in-store rentals (and I do not have a 5-rental monthly limit like some other users), and the two video game coupons to top it off.

The way I see it, it cost $8 to rent a video game at Blockbuster. That means $16 is already justified with my current $21.xx monthly charge (before renting any DVD or BluRay that I want).

I think they should forget about MAILING video games, simply make the return envelops into a free game rental in-store.

Either 2 or 3 movie rentals by mail = one video game rental in-store

It may be because I live in the Dallas area, where Blockbuster HQ is located, but the service has always been great to me.

Sounds really complicated and will probably quicken Blockbuter's demise. The whole "Total Access" thing is already complicated.

Practically everyone rents movies but game rentals are a niche. I don't think this going to hurt Netflix at all as long as they stay on top of internet streaming.

This definitely wouldn't make me a customer of Blockbuster again. I quit using them long before they started their Netflix-esque mailing service, but I know friends who had the mailing service for a while. They said the service was horrible, but they kept it while it was considerably cheaper than Netflix. As the price crept up, they finally decided to drop it and go with Netflix.

As far as games go, I usually like them because even though I pay $60 for the game, I will usually play it for 12-24+ months. Since I like to keep the game around and keep going back to it, there's no benefit in a rental service for games to me.

@Darrone: Very true. My boyfriend buys his and beats them in a couple days. At least I have a PS3 now so I can just borrow his games.

@semanticantics: I don't follow the logic. If they send the games in the same kind envelopes as the movies, then there's no difference in the risk of loss. If they put the games in a different kind of envelope, though, then yeah, the chances that those movies get "lost" goes way up.

@Darrone: If they're "hardcore gamers" then they'll beat the game in its entirety and will want to move onto the next game.

That means a lot of game purchases, and alot of them won't be able to afford it.

I've already beaten games like Saints Row 2, Prince of Persia, Dead Space, Mirror's Edge, and Call of Duty World at War within Blockbuster's 5-day rental limit.

Imagine how much money I would've had to spend to buy those games that came out during November/December last year: $60 each, $300 total.

I'm not that hardcore to spend $300 during a two month period.

Well, since many people are being laid off, and assuming...they have severance packages, they will be on their asses for a very long time, so they will play video games or something....

The only reason someone would rent games in my opinion is to rip them. I know a lot of people rip the movies too...

@jehurey:

I think they should forget about MAILING video games, simply make the return envelops into a free game rental in-store.

A solid idea there. Also reduces overhead from postage.

Someone give this man a job!

This makes me a tiny bit regretful that I just switched from BB:TA to Netflix. Adding games is something of a no-brainer; I'm surprised it took them this long.

However, it's not enough to get me to switch back. Blockbuster needs an answer to Netflix Instant Queue straight to my TV. It's so good I cancelled my cable.

How about this for a leg-up: Since Netflix is now streamable via XBOX 360, how long before you're able to "rent" DLC for the XBOX 360 straight from Netflix?

@Elcheecho: Agreed. No down side as far as I can tell.

@Rob Weddle: Oh there's an additional charge. Big fail there.

Like you said, a separate subscription tier would be much better.

I think it's a good idea if they can pull it off. Gamefly sucks, has bad reviews for long turnaround times and stating games are available that aren't.

It is the ONLY thing that can give BB a leg up over Netflix.

@Rob Weddle: Average X360 game is about 8.5GBs of data, you can't exactly shrink that down or even stream it, for that matter.

I am all for Netflix adding games. Ironically, just today I ended a 30 day trial of Gamefly. I canceled the account because their shipping was just too slow, the worst being a full 9 days from the morning a game was put in my mailbox to the afternoon I got another game (the best was 4 days, which is close to our usual Netflix turnaround, which is 3).

I was a person who had no problem paying an extra dollar to get Blu-Ray from Netflix. I would also have no problem paying an extra dollar or two to get games from Netflix. With that said, I'd be interested to see how they'd integrate them. What I would prefer is that if I'm on the 3-at-a-time plan, just let any number of those be games just as any number can now be blu-ray. It might also be nice to change the interface so that I can specify that I want to have two movies and one game. It's still very important to me that other family members have their own queue and I can manage how many each person can have out.

In other words, I think games would be GREAT for Netflix to do (or at minimum, partner with GameFly and let them use your distribution network/shipping centers), but there's a chance they'd screw it up either in price or interface/integration

Netflix is the GOLD STANDARD, bar none. Look at the numbers: Netflix consistently makes a quarterly profit, while Blockbuster is nearing bankruptcy.

Good move by Blockbuster here; might as well offer something that Netflix doesn't. Although, I recommend Blockbuster close all their physical stores and concentrate only on mailing/distribution, a la Netflix.

(But, make sure to offer those employees who work at brick-and-mortar stores a job!)

@Rob Weddle: My concern is Blockbuster customer service and user agreement (which I am not familiar with, and doesn't exist yet for games) vs. NetFlix'ses's great customer service and basically no-fault agreement. It's more about Blockbuster than NetFlix. And part of why I think NetFlix is great is because the RoI is super high on their cheap DVD's vs. what is likely possible vs. games.

@lilspooky: I suppose, but then watch Netflix's monthly fees go through the roof.

How much does a GameFly account cost?

$20? $18.99?

And a Netflix account?

$7.99? $9.99?

I'm surprised that Blockbuster simply doesn't offer this as a $25-$30 monthly subscription to walk into any blockbuster store and rent up to 3 movies at a time and one video game at a time.

They have all these stores (at least where I live), and I bet you that almost 50% of all the people that visit the store are TotalAccess members who are dropping off their envelopes and picking up movies without paying anything.

They're paying to keep stores open, and paying employees, and a large chuck of their walk-ins are people who don't pay them a dime in-store.

@Darrone: Speak for yourself. I don't know any hardcore gamers willing to shill out cash for a brand new game they only know through reviews. I know plenty who will rent or pirate one before they buy it, though.

@Darrone: I rent games frequently to try them out before deciding if I want to buy. I'm not hardcore. Beating a game is a big thing for me! But I like to game, and I like to rent so I can see the variety out there.

The people I usually see renting games are 12-year-old boys or moms or mid-30s gamers like me. Folks who aren't going to drop a lot of dollars on games, but really enjoy it (or their kids enjoy it).

die blockbuster...DIE!

Blockbuster once claimed that I didn't return a video that I placed in the return slot. Subsequently, I was charged with the purchase price. Having no receipt with with to verify my return, I took my lumps and paid.

I am a Netflix only person now. I'll most likely never go back, unless the deal is just too hard to resist.

@jehurey: Renting doesn't make sense if you play online, which a lot of hardcore gamers do. Even non hardcore like myself. I play Halo 3 online once a week for an hour or so. The more people start getting into online play, the less relevant renting becomes. Hardcore gamers don't just beat the game and move to the next, they hang on and play it to death.

It is completely obvious to anyone else that GameFly is using the Netflix API to run their subscription system and is probably paying Netflix hefty licensing fees? Therefore, I'm not surprised that no counter-move is in the works.

@Eyebrows McGee: Again, the point I was mainly pushing here is that hardcore gamers purchase for the long haul. They don't buy and beat games in the modern business model, they play them online for a few months, and then move on, defeating the purpose of mail-rental system.

And this system, especially, makes no sense if you plan on buying the game anyway. huge waste.

@pecan pi:

If you weren't one of the first blockbuster.com customers who still get coupons for 2 games (or movies)/mo. for free on top of their normal account. Slight pain in the ass to print out and bring to the store, but great value.

@Rhayader:

I think the downside is the cost of game disc replacement. You rent a DVD out a few dozen times, rendering it unwatchable (because people seem to LOVE touching them with chicken grease all over their fingers and then wiping the disc on their jeans), and the replacement is between $7-$20 wholesale.

Rent out a game, the cost goes up considerably. Then they'll try to charge the last person who rented the game for the replacement, leading to a bunch of (justified) pissing and moaning, leading to bad PR, leading to Blockbuster realizing that they suck, yet again.

this is the first bright move i've seen blockbuster make in a long time. the industry can obviously use a little competition - most of what i hear about gamefly is...not good. if blockbuster can just match their incompetence, they have an opportunity to turn things around here.

@Mr_Human:

I really don't think Netflix is worried about blockbuster. Other than a cursory look, I'm sure their pricing structure isn't set to be competitive with Blockbuster.