Block-who?

Drove by my local store last night ~9pm and it was dark and locked up. Guess they're also cutting hours back.

They're dying here, cut em some slack.

Blockbuster can now celebrate the end of customers! Their last customer just threatened to leave, so they are officially screwed.

Oh god. I still have flashbacks and nightmares about The Late Fees Fiasco. I worked at BB in high school, during that crap. The very first time I saw the training video, I said to my boss, "We're going to be sued for this." I took the extra 30 seconds to COMPLETELY explain the program to every single person I helped...or at least the ones who asked, when it was busy. I'm SO glad I never have to work retail again. SO. GLAD.

I wouldn't know. I haven't been to a blockbuster for anything in almost 5 years.

Aren't all the few remaining Blockbusters "select stores" these days?

I have not been in a blockbuster for perhaps a decade. Why do they still exists in the netflix age?

I had a Long time love affair with Blockbuster my Total Access plan was amazing , 3 movies at a time ,Unlimited trade ins 2 free games rentals a month for $19.99 .. But this is the end of my love .. my local store is stopping renting later this month to be a %100 retail store .. Blockbuster takes about a week to even send me another online rental .. i have 10 + movies available in my Queue but they do not send anything ...

Blockbuster you are dead in my eyes ..

(Already a netflix customer as well.. But with out competition i feel netflix will change for the worse as well)

our select BlockBuster location is now an abandoned former Crocker Bank location - fab 1972 architecture intact. Some display materials still on the wall, looks like they skulked away in the middle of the night

@Radi0logy: That's capitalism, folks...live by its sword; die by its sword. Dog eat dog. Make your bed and lie in it.

People still go to Blockbuster? What is this, 1998?

"It's dead Jim!"
-Leonard McCoy

I keep on going to to blockbuster because of trhe hot cashier who doesn't have anything else to do but to talk to me. Heck I don't have an account anymore she'll soon be out of a job

I don't rent videos or games but...if the rental period is FIVE days then one should only keep the game FIVE days or pay extra. I don't see the big deal with this. After all, doesn't Redbox charge $1.00 for EACH day that you keep a video out.

@AllanG54: Yes, but Redbox also never said that they were ending late fees, make it such a big deal, and then go back on its word to make a quick buck.

What the hell is a Blockbuster?

@AllanG54: Redbox's daily fee is just that: a rental fee for essentially renting it *again* for a one-day period. BB's fee after the initial rental period of five days constitutes an additional fee, and one that is on its face a penalty of sorts for keeping the product outside of the originally ascribed rental period. They charge you more for keeping something when you already paid for it, and made a big deal about ending the very fee they're now reinstating. It's a late fee.

what about people using the monthly game pass, even with the pass I get phone calls from the local store telling me I am late...I called the store once and they told me they are obligated to do this even if you are a monthly pass holder. And last week they refused to let me rent a game because my credit card on file (which is my debit card and sometimes there is no money there) declined from the pre auth, but my pass was still good for another 2 weeks. I told the guy I paid for a service and you're not providing it to me, he replied we have the right to do this, so then I told him to give me a refund and he said they are not allowed to refund a game pass. I have 1 month available on my pass and I will be another ex blockbuster customer.

It's like the library in the tiny rural town I grew up in. But for games and movies... and they charge you outrageous prices for the horrible selection of products they keep in stock.

I'm not sure if anyone has actually been in a Blockbuster for a few years, but since I've moved to college and have been frequenting a Blockbuster, not once have I seen a sign that says "End of late fees." Checking their website, I can only find press releases from 2005 is the last mention of "End of Late Fees." I know that it may suck that they're back, but I can't knock them for over End of Late Fees when that program ended years ago.

Phew.. Video game rentals are so expensive in the first place. I'm glad my husband is mostly a PC gamer, which isn't cheap, but atleast he's not buying a new PS3 game at 60+ every other week. We have a Wii, but we don't play it that often, and the new games for it seem to be more reasonable when we do want one.

I've heard bad things about Gamefly, so that wouldn't even help. Netflix could really kill Blockbuster if they would start renting out games.

Shouldn't we have a Blockbuster Deathwatch by now?

Whats the going rate for a 5 day game rental?

I stopped renting when they wanted me to put my credit card on a family account and I didn't trust my brother.

Any idea whether this is a Corporate owned store or a Franchise?? I'm thinking franchise...

@JonThomasDesigns: I was in the same boat as you. I finally gave up on Total Access this last month myself. I hope Netflix doesn't go down the crapper once Blockbuster bites the dust.

@JonThomasDesigns: Netflix doesn't have direct competition but Redbox is definitely going to keep them honest. If Netflix were to raise their prices I would cancel and switch to only using Redbox.

I know it is not great for all people but I live in Chicago and there are boxes everywhere.

So what was in effect a 30-day rental for about $9.25, you're now looking at a 25-day rental at over $19? At that point, you may be better off waiting for the price of titles to come down and buying them outright. I realize Blockbuster is a sinking ship, but who made that call? If this is supposed to promote more prompt returns, I don't think it will be as useful as they think. With the initial rental fee being more than a buck a day, you're still better off turning in a game late rather than returning and re-renting.

@redskull: I just came in here to say something similar, are the "select stores" the few ones that are still open?

For all those bashing blockbuster, what alternatives do you suggest? There are no Redboxes anywhere near me and I dont' like ordering movies online and waiting a few days for them to arrive in the mail (planning a few days in advance to watch a movie seems kind of silly to me, I want to watch the movie on my timeframe not whenever netflix feels like sending it to me).

This post is more to prove a point as I currently live within walking distance of two excellent local video stores, but if I lived in the 'burbs my only options would either be blockbuster or waiting for the mail to arrive and hoping there was a movie in it.

@holytrainwreck: Agreed. Living one's life in a certain way will, in the end, affect one's destiny

Video games are lame

@katstermonster: Yeah, you're lucky enough to surf out the crap job market in grad school. Finishing this year, I'm not so convinced about the "never" working retail again...eeek.

But this - I can't believe Blockbuster hasn't died yet. Really. Round these parts, just walking into a BB is painful.

@mizike: If you're not willing to do Netflix, you're stuck with Blockbuster until it completely shuts down..and then what? I say try out Netflix.

Netflix's usual turnaround, unless you're in the sticks, is about one to two days. It seems you live in a city. I don't think Netflix will take very long to get you a movie at all, and it's very accurate. 9 times out of 10, I got the disc I wanted the day I knew it would arrive. And you get streaming so you can always watch a movie online.

@AllanG54: Blockbuster celebrated "the end of late fees". That's why it's a big deal - they're brining them back, and maybe not being very up front about it.

I disagree with the OP's assessment - especially considering at 10 days late the rental already gets converted. That doesn't mean they should be sneaky with the fees (which it sounds like they are) but even so.

That said, the game is due back in five days - that's the agreement you make when you rent it. So what's the big deal about returning it in that time period? I mean, if the sneaky return of late fees (assuming it is sneaky, I don't know how well it's advertised) that bothers you, you should stop renting on the spot. But if it's the period over which they charge the fees that bothers you - that's another matter.

This has been standard at Canadian Blockbusters for almost a year now, well almost.

Game rentals are a 7 day initial period for 7.99 or 8.99 with a dollar per day charge for an additional 7 days. After that the game is converted to an automatic sale but can still be returned for another 30 days with no restocking fee.

That said as a gamer and a BBV employee, this isn't the most unreasonable thing a video store has ever done, I'm an honest guy and I don't have a problem enforcing this one.

As to the end of late fees, that was how many years ago now? Do we really expect a company to never change its policies? We had a good run with no late fees, now Blockbuster's on the rocks, how about we let them try and change up their business model a little bit?

@PLAAND88: "Select" stores means they're running a test to gauge customer reaction before rolling this out nationwide, they did the same thing recently here with a new rewards package.

I will agree with blockbuster on this one. The reason for 1 day late fees on games is so that more people can rent them. They usually have 1 copy of a game which they don't want held out for twice the time when they could be making 2 rental fees off of one game.

If you want to rent it for a month, get an all access pass its 23 bucks for unlimited movies and games.

In other news, it turns out that killing the golden goose reduces egg output.

I have a question about the conversion to a sale.
The movies had a convert to sale also....and I could see how renting a movie for $5 and then paying $1 a day for 10 more days would basicly mean you bought it.

Now this sounds like a cheaper way to get games.
Rent for say $8.00 then pay $10 more in late fees...Then it's mine? Really. Sure beats the hell outa paying $40-$60 and Gamestop.

@Kimaroo - 20% More Kitty Added!: Gamefly is the service you're looking for.

It's netflix, but for games.

@Covertghost: Ahh sorry didn't read the 2nd paragraph <_<.

It's not any worse than netflix imo (using both).

@subtlefrog: Well, I technically had an offer in my hands after my last internship, so I would have been okay, even though I wasn't thrilled about the position. I'm also lucky in that I'm a Mechanical Engineer and I live in CT (home to GE and UTC and lots of subsidiaries), so I probably wouldn't have had to find a job outside my field. Phew. Most companies are on hiring freezes but I know people who've still gotten jobs in the last few months with connections and whatnot.

@Kimaroo - 20% More Kitty Added!: In my experience, Gamefly's biggest issue is that they don't yet have the number of distribution centers that Netflix does. It's not unusual for me to wait at least a week for Gamefly to ship me a new game, whereas with Netflix, the turnaround is three days at most. That said, paying eight bucks for the 1-at-a-time plan might be worth it if you're really into gaming. That's what I do. It gives me plenty of time to focus on that one game, and it's way cheaper than buying them.

@jan_itor: Nope, it's corporate wide. I rented a game from Blockbuster last week and they told me about it then, I asked them if it was just that store or every Blockbuster, and they told me every one. Needless to say, I'm never going back into a Blockbuster once I return this game. I've got Netflix for my movies, which goes to my XBox, and I'll get Gamefly for games, since the monthy fee isn't much more than two or three rentals from Blockbuster ($6.99 a pop, if I recall correctly).

@MarvinMar:
I think they charge your card with full retail price after the period is up. So $8 + $10 + $60.

Blockbusters can be put up for death watch. No way it will be here in 2 years.

They usually just charge my credit card for the full price of the game if I don't return it within 5 days. Which I usually don't, cause I play slow, and sometimes take a minute to beat it. When I return it, they just credit the amuont back to my card. I was told when this first happened to me (right after the initial news of no more late fee's) that I was credited everything back except for about a dollar. So I fail to see how this is news.

On a side note, if they want to make efforts to have more games in stock for their customers, they could try a policy that prevents their employees from renting/keeping the newest release games for an entire month... or hey, just buy more games to stock for renting. Either way, they are failing horribly at this aim, and this new policy will do nothing for them except drive away more customers who nit pick over a dollar.

@BenjaminCachimbear: I literally haven't seen the inside of ANY movie rental place in 15 years. Last time I was there they ONLY had VHS tapes.

@katstermonster: It's not exactly a clear plan. You're renting a movie for supposedly a specific and short amount of time, but there are no late fees for an extra ten days after that?
I always wondered what would prevent people keeping it an extra few days or an extra week - wouldn't everyone want to do that? So why not just make all rentals 14 days or whatever? And then my head exploded and I just went to Redbox....