Why did renting games become less popular in the modern era?

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kamikazekeeg:
I miss rental stores...

hoshichiri:
Rental stores didn't close down becuase people weren't renting games. They closed becuase people weren't renting [movies]. There's a reason they had names like Blockbuster and Hollywood, y'know. Basically, Netflix killed the rental store by being far more convenient (first by making you need go no farther than your mailbox for movies, then via digital distribution for instant gratification.)

So, why couldn't game rentals save these stores? CDs. CDs made it cheap to get demos out there. Why make a special trip to a store to get one game to play for 2-3 days (so you're not likely to finish it & may not even like it) when that Pizza Hut your mom ordered for a special weekend dinner came with a demo disc- half a dozen different games for you to sample at your will! I remember when I got my PS2, Sony had me sign up for the PlayStation Underground. For years, I'd just get random demos in the mail, unprompted. By the time systems went online, you could try damn near any game on a moment's notice. Not much reason to run to the store and pay for a tryout. Basically, once it was cheap enough to get us free samples of games, rentals became obsolete.

Semi-related: I miss Game Crazy too. I remember when ours closed, I had a late shift so I made plans to hit the store at opening when the closing sale began. Then they changed my shift to an opening one. I went to my boss and asked to have my late shift back- so I could go to the Game Crazy Closing Sale and buy games. Yeah, just straight-up admitted it. Trick was, my boss at the time? Also a gamer. He OK'd the switch back to the late shift, and gave me a list of titles to pick up for him if they were around. While I was at the store, I got a call from my fiance- at the time, we both worked in the same store. My boss wanted to add Record of Agarest War to the list. i asked if he wanted the standard release, or the pervy LE with the body pillow & boobie mousepad. He says "Hang on-" and proceeds to yell exactly that sentence across the store, so every other employee can hear it. A second later, he answers: "he wants the pervy one." That was a fun day.

sworddude:

--- Quote from: badATchaos on April 24, 2018, 09:11:41 pm ---While their has been massive changes to content delivery (such as downloading, mail rentals, and even streaming services like OnLive) that has increase customer convenience, I feel the change from cartridges to optical media also greatly effected the rental business. Since loose discs are easier to break, or even loose, companies have to steadily replace their inventory at higher rates. A nationwide company would have serious overhead.

--- End quote ---

Not really rental was still pretty succesfull during the ps1 era so many rentals can be found of that console. When ps2 xbox gamecube came out it was the beginning for games to be very affordable.

Not to mention that discs of today are very sturdy ps3 is pretty hard to get scratches on and ps4 is even better, also if you break an item you have to pay for the damage there is no loss there. Rentals were also there with dvd's that's disc based and especially dvd's were fragile compared to consoles discs yet very succesfull. Blue ray is allot harder to break so again with your conclusion I would say rentals should have been a huge succes today.

Also they say that blockbuster was at it's peak during the dvd era 2004 totally disc based the most fragile discs around aside from music discs ::)

Yep cardridge format was most definitly the deciding factor there but to be honest I don't really think so :D

prizes of games and the 2nd hand market have killed the need for rental Let's just say decent internet for the common man killed rental. Back in the day ebay amazon prime you name it with there crazy deals where not there internet as a whole was very bad allot of people used it only for games work and email if you were pretty hardcore. Sure you had flea markets but for most people rental is the way to go to play allot of games for cheap.

I'm pretty sure that indeed movies had the bigger shares but same rules apply to movies or even worse since you could just order them online as soon as they come out.

turf:
I think it's a little bit of a lot of things. Y'all have nailed it.

Games got cheaper to own.
Games were longer. It wasn't as fun to just play for a weekend.
Discs weren't as durable. Cartridges were tanks!

It just became less and less profitable for business to rent games.

sworddude:

--- Quote from: turf on April 25, 2018, 10:10:10 am ---I think it's a little bit of a lot of things. Y'all have nailed it.

Games got cheaper to own.
Games were longer. It wasn't as fun to just play for a weekend.
Discs weren't as durable. Cartridges were tanks!

It just became less and less profitable for business to rent games.

--- End quote ---

But the most succes and profits were made during the dvd era why would the cart cd transition matter? Not to mention that discs are pretty much indestructable these days.

VHS tapes were far more unreliable compared to discs if were talking about movies.

also don't forget that while carts were more durable the costs of cd's is what made games allot cheaper in the first place and thus a loss less damaging to the profits if they could not prove that the one who rented it broke the movie/game.

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