Whats the deal with Blockbuster right now? Last I heard they were going the way of the dodo. And now I'm hearing that they are moving away from the video store model completely and towards mail-in and stream delivery only model? And is it too little too late for them now or does it look like they are actually going to survive?
I used to rent at Blockbuster way back in the day. Before I had high-speed internet I would rent VHS tapes (by the time DVD was popular, I was already downloading shit) and Playstation 1 games from them ocassionally. The newer release stuff was on the expensive side ($5 but only for 3 days) but anything that wasn't a "new release" was like $5 for 7 days I think (I'm not 100% sure but I think that's what it was). Which wasn't a bad deal at the time to be honest. If you constantly rented (say a game a week), that's like $20-$25 a month. That wasn't bad. (Though I never was a regular renter since I had a modchip). We have it a lot better now with stuff like Gamefly these days because 1) that $20-25 a month in say year 2000 is worth more than $23/month in 2010, 2) that $23/month is for 2 games at a time, not 1. And 3) Gamefly's selection is way better than your local Blockbuster's. Though unlike Gamefly, you don't have to wait for shipping when you pick up a rental at a video store.
Nowadays though I hear that renting a game from Blockbuster in store is like $10. Even if you adjust for inflation, that's a good bit more expensive than the $5 rentals of a decade ago. This isn't the crazy inflation days of yesterday. So when a rental is like $10, doesn't surprise me why gamers don't head over to Blockbuster to rent a game anymore. I wouldn't know personally though. Aside from going there once to buy a used game and applying for a job some years ago, I haven't stepped foot in a Blockbuster for almost a decade. Now that Blockbuster is trying to get in on the mail-in action and at an affordable price compared to Gamefly (even if it's just 3 months older releases), they might actually be relevant now. Especially when Gamefly isn't exactly all that great for new releases anyway (though from that research I've done, apparently you can reserve games on Gamefly so that should help on the new release end. Oddly enough, I didn't read anything about reserves on their website.)
