| General and Gaming > Classic Video Games |
| Why did renting games become less popular in the modern era? |
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| emporerdragon:
--- Quote from: dharmajones93 on April 24, 2018, 04:59:07 pm ---The games themselves might have something to do with it also. Renting something like Skyrim, Breath of the Wild, or Horizon Zero Dawn just don't make sense. It would take three weekends just to get through the tutorial stages in some cases. By that time I could have just bought the game outright. --- End quote --- Don't underestimate someone completely engrossed in a game. Myself, I was able to complete Tales of Symphonia on a single weekend rental. In any case, to me, renting just wasn't worth it anymore. I liked keeping my games, and the price difference between a rental and buying a copy of the game was small enough that a rental didn't make a whole lot of sense. Additionally, If I just wanted to try a game, I could just download a trial/demo and get a feel for the game that way. And probably the biggest factor was my ever growing backlog. If I've got several dozen (now several hundred) titles that I haven't even started, why am I renting one? |
| 98dgreen:
--- Quote from: soera on April 24, 2018, 04:23:03 pm ---Digital killed the rental. --- End quote --- If you look at the graph you can see it was already dead before digital was mainstream. In reality it was the fact that games were getting longer and it was no longer cost effective to rent. |
| burningdoom:
--- Quote from: 98dgreen on April 24, 2018, 06:08:43 pm --- --- Quote from: soera on April 24, 2018, 04:23:03 pm ---Digital killed the rental. --- End quote --- If you look at the graph you can see it was already dead before digital was mainstream. In reality it was the fact that games were getting longer and it was no longer cost effective to rent. --- End quote --- Looks about right to me. 2004 is about where it starts to really drop. That's about when XBox Live was just getting big (on original XBox), digital games on PC started becoming a big thing, GameFly and Netflix were doing disc-deliveries to your door. And the other consoles like Wii and PS3 that did this were literally just a year or so away. |
| r33benelli:
You're mostly speaking out of nostalgia. I have the same type of memories but when you stack them against reality there is no mystery as to why game/movie rentals died down. Renting didn't become less popular it just became less and less profitable to have a business rely ONLY on physical rentals. Movies most likely made up a majority of rentals, while games made up a smaller portion. A physical store has to cover fixed overhead costs and relying only on movie rentals with a subsidy from game rentals, while trying to compete (and ignoring) digital rentals/sales...eventually there was not enough revenue generated to keep stores running. The market changed and companies like blockbuster didn't really embrace the change fast enough or properly adapt to it. Physical rentals went from being the standard to a novelty. Gamestop/EB games is going through a similar crisis as they heavily rely on physical sales and people physically coming into the store. |
| badATchaos:
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. |
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