VGCollect Forum
General and Gaming => Classic Video Games => Topic started by: marvelvscapcom2 on April 24, 2018, 03:14:50 pm
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Hello everyone :)
I have been browsing for a little while now and one thing I always see come up in discussions with retro game lovers are the nostalgic old stories people love to share of how when they were a kid they'd go to their local blockbuster or other rental service place and rent the latest and greatest NES or SNES games and run home to try them, the fresh grey plastic smell and the blockbuster cases that have become immortalized in our memories and hearts forever :). it'd be a weekend memory for them growing up to get a new game to try and beat :). They'd grab some candy from the local store and invite friends and try different games out and only the most beloved ones would get bought if they enjoyed them a lot and didn't want to give them back :D It was a ritual of sorts and almost imbeded into their childhood fun. I remember having amazing memories like this with Hollywood video as a kid because that was the one closest to my house. But it seems like the magic never did return. And by the time I became a teenager, they were all but dead. :(
This was such a huge staple in gaming that almost everyone has a fond memory of Blockbuster or Hollywood video and renting out a game and either hating it to the point of a funny memory or loving it so that it became instilled in their life and soul. :) And I don't see why it wouldn't work in the modern era. I wish I could go to the blockbuster right now and rent Dragon Ball Fighter Z or another game I want to try. It would be beautiful if they could reopen. I dream and long for game crazy to come back. I remember actually crying the day they closed. :(
But as time went on, renting games sort of died slow with the way of the evolution of gaming. With no real sign of why. It led to both blockbuster and hollywood video going under and nobody ever rents games ever since maybe the PS2 era on I started noticing the decline and certainly once the PS3 era came it was almost non existant. You'd never hear "Oh I rented God of War III, I gotta return it" It was always pre orders and buying it out right and digital copies. :(
(https://worksmarternotharder.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/blockbuster-10yr-stock-price1.jpg)
Why do you think this sudden collapse occurred? It seems like it was so sudden and so random that the rental companies began to tank. Was this a perpetration by gamestop or some other big corperate entity like Microsoft and Sony themselves? Or was it more just people becoming more technology driven and steering away from physical media?
A lot of people say renting games became less popular because blockbuster went under, but blockbuster went under because renting games became less popular. It happened before which led to the closings not vice versa. And renting games still have Gamefly and Redbox and such as avenues into renting the newest games but nobody seems to do it anymore and those who do are certainly a minority.
I kinda question myself as to why I have never tried gamefly or redbox for games. Neither have most of my friends or family. It seems like such a convenient way to beat games you want to beat but not have to keep them or pay full price for them. :) I wonder if a diversion tactic is at play. But that's another discussion for another day.
Why do you think renting games became less popular. And if you were one of the kids who rented from blockbuster, how come you didn't continue into the modern era (if you stopped). :)
Thanks for reading and sharing. :D.
R.I.P Blockbuster :(
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/GC4Q83EVnok/hqdefault.jpg)
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Simply because it's not as convenient. Redbox carries a scant few, and there are no more rental stores. There's Gamefly, but it's just not as convenient nor does it have that instant gratification.
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Games were way more expensive back than
Yea sure allot of things were cheap back than since you could do more with little money but games were pricy. In my country they would even rent out ps1 consoles in special suit cases since they were so pricy to afford back than. Thanks to inflation money is worth allot less than it used to.
Nowadays consoles and games are relatively cheap in comparison when they are brand new.
I'm pretty sure the costs where the succes factor for rentals back than. Also don't forget about steam digital downloads massive sales in many games. Very few titles hold their value nowadays unless it is a collectors edition but that defeats the purpose of playing them games.
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Digital killed the rental.
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Yeah, I think its everything. Why aren't people renting period?
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.
I would rent games for sleep overs, like the OP hinted at. If we wanted to play a multiplayer game none of us owned we'd walk up the street to blockbuster and grab it and bring it back at the end of the weekend. I still do the same, but as another person indicated I can just grab it off the eShop or something at a massive discount and not even have to leave the house!
Ugghhh, I just felt a big pit in my stomach... I miss weekend High School Super Mario Kart tournaments :-[
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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.
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?
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Digital killed the rental.
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.
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Digital killed the rental.
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.
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.
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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.
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While their has been massive changes to content delivery (such as downloading, mail rentals, and even streaming services like OnLive (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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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I miss rental stores...
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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.
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While their has been massive changes to content delivery (such as downloading, mail rentals, and even streaming services like OnLive (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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Digital killed the rental.
This, as did rental delivery services like early Netflix which allowed you to rent pretty much as many movies as you wanted, albeit one at a time (unless you paid a bit more), for what it would cost you to rent a couple of movies from Blockbuster.
I miss video rental stores sorely and wish they were still around, but why they pretty much went extinct is no mystery.
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How is VHS more unreliable? They don't scratch, they aren't prone to disc-rot, and they're a lot harder to physically break. About the only thing you've really got to worry about is keeping them from moisture and magnets.
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How is VHS more unreliable? They don't scratch, they aren't prone to disc-rot, and they're a lot harder to physically break. About the only thing you've really got to worry about is keeping them from moisture and magnets.
Rewinding can take it's toll you will be missing parts of a movie sound etc, I remember some of my old vhs tapes going bad and missing pieces at some point. Aging also takes it toll on vhs tapes. I guess it will work for a longer period of time when abused however you will be missing small pieces of the movie overtime wich does not happen with cd's. Not a vhs collector btw but I do have some vhs tapes of my past.
It's not that great to be honest, with dvd's you have disc repair an easy fix. and with blue ray scratches are almost a thing of the past.
Sure discs have disc rot wich is very rare to be honest I've only seen it with bad condition discs in my country never with excellent ones. But vhs tapes also age and it will become more and more fragile when times goes by. in my opinion vhs is way less reliable.
Video tape on your vhs can scred overtime when that happens it is beyone repair the shelf life of a vhs tape might be less than that of a dvd also when it is not used since it has become to fragile to use. Missing parts of a movie and a shorter shelf life not to great of a format :-\
Just like discs with care it could last allot longer but I'm pretty sure the shelf life of a vhs tape is less than that of discs from what I have seen. Also I'm pretty sure that something else will destroy a disc at the end of it's life span instead of disc rot. Disc rot is something on bad discs or when it has been stored in a bad climate it is a pretty rare thing unless your going for mediocre condition stuff and even than it is pretty hard to find. I have seen way more discs than many of you guys disc rot is not something one should worry about to much It's very rare.
VHS isn't as great as one might think. There is a reason why so many people try to convert their vhs to digital they will die allot sooner than cd's .
Many people give discs the hate but many people still use them while vhs is not that desired unwanted so less people complaining. Cd's are a more reliable format and they last a bit or probably allot longer the newer discs might even last an eterinity as far as blue rays ps4 xbox one discs etc go. Sure a dvd is thin and fragile you could break it in half a vhs can fall on the ground without any damage but that's the only durability/ armor it has in the short term.
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Rewinding shouldn't hurt tapes at all, unless your VCR is defective or something.
If your VCR is shredding tapes, though, that means you need to use a head cleaner tape, or open her up and clean them yourself. That's basic maintenance that you need to do if you own a VCR at all. You can still buy head-cleaners at Wal-Greens and Rite-Aid.
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Rewinding shouldn't hurt tapes at all, unless your VCR is defective or something.
If your VCR is shredding tapes, though, that means you need to use a head cleaner tape, or open her up and clean them yourself. That's basic maintenance that you need to do if you own a VCR at all. You can still buy head-cleaners at Wal-Greens and Rite-Aid.
if I were you I would look things up online
VHS tapes have way less shelf life than cd's wich might eventually get disc rot before they die out. This is ofcourse an example if both formats have been kept well.
Not to mention that even if it still works the quality is degrading in those vhs tapes wich with cd's is not an issue at all.
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I don't need to look it up. I'm talking from experience. I own 1000s of VHS that I still watch regularly. Collect movies of all formats. And my dad always collected them, too. Always been around the VHS, and a lot of it. In fact, a lot of my collection now was his collection, I got those when he passed away.
What exactly do I need to look up? That you need to put a head-cleaner in your VCR if it's eating tapes? Absolutely common knowledge for anyone familiar with VHS.
What exactly makes you believe that it has a shorter shelf life? Plastic takes forever to degrade. And the plastic shell is there to protect the film inside.
Let me clear here, I'm not arguing that VHS is a better format that DVD or Blu-Ray. Obviously VHS has the lowest picture quality (except for maybe video-CD). Just about the reliability comment. They're solidly built and will last you your entire lifetime as long as it's not exposed to moisture, extreme temperatures, or magnets. And the data can't be chipped or scratched away as long as you aren't opening up your tapes and getting violent with them.
Honestly, these formats really haven't been around to get solid data. As of now, the first VHS, CD, or DVD made should all still run and play just fine as long as it's kept properly. I have VCD Discs (older than VHS), that still run and play just fine. I have records and 8-tracks that still play fine. And most of us have Atari carts that run a-okay. I don't think it's a problem we're really gonna run into in our lifetimes, with the way people like us keep our collections in good shape.
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I don't need to look it up. I'm talking from experience. I own 1000s of VHS that I still watch regularly. Collect movies of all formats. And my dad always collected them, too. Always been around the VHS, and a lot of it. In fact, a lot of my collection now was his collection, I got those when he passed away.
What exactly do I need to look up? That you need to put a head-cleaner in your VCR if it's eating tapes? Absolutely common knowledge for anyone familiar with VHS.
What exactly makes you believe that it has a shorter shelf life? Plastic takes forever to degrade. And the plastic shell is there to protect the film inside.
Let me clear here, I'm not arguing that VHS is a better format that DVD or Blu-Ray. Obviously VHS has the lowest picture quality (except for maybe video-CD). Just about the reliability comment. They're solidly built and will last you your entire lifetime as long as it's not exposed to moisture, extreme temperatures, or magnets. And the data can't be chipped or scratched away as long as you aren't opening up your tapes and getting violent with them.
Honestly, these formats really haven't been around to get solid data. As of now, the first VHS, CD, or DVD made should all still run and play just fine as long as it's kept properly. I have VCD Discs (older than VHS), that still run and play just fine. I have records and 8-tracks that still play fine. And most of us have Atari carts that run a-okay. I don't think it's a problem we're really gonna run into in our lifetimes, with the way people like us keep our collections in good shape.
Cd's have a higher shelf life compared to vhs only thing I'm saying as far as expectations go between the two formats.
But you are correct there is no solid data as of yet since otherwise allot more discs or vhs tapes should have been unusable wich has not been the case yet when where talking about the properly kept ones.
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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.
Thanks for sharing everyone :). The discussion has been very informative and fun :D.
I'm not so sure I agree with some of the explenations though. Because like others have said blockbuster was still extremely lucrative with Disc based media in movie format and during the PS1 era. It was only at around 2005 where they dropped rapidly and only until about PS3/360 era when they fully died.
And the games got cheaper to own argument is something I don't get much.
(https://kiwifarms.net/attachments/271220/)
37.99 for a new game back than, some were 40 or a little more, but with inflation from the early 90s it equals about what we pay today.
Based on my inflation calculator, 40 in 1994 translates into 68.28. So games might have gotten slightly cheaper but let's also remember how much those games costed to make. Carts were more money to produce.
Playstation was 299.99 at launch, translated to 2018 is about 510 which about the going rate of a One X or PS4 pro. So I think they are on par with the inflation of pricing with the time :).
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(https://www.retrowaste.com/wp-content/gallery/1990s-video-games-ads/1996-super-nintendo-console-games.jpg)
More like 50 - 70 $ before tax except for some compilations of older games that's like 100$ each game
The console was more expensive on release so this is already a bit later considering that street fighter alpha 2 is one of the last snes releases
And while inflation is a thing this was allot of money back than
Chrono trigger was 80 brand new and phantasy star 4 for the sega genesis a whopping 100$ proabably without taxes :o would be like 170 ish for phantasy star 4 excluding taxes.
Don't forget that very few titles hold that 50 60$ mark most drop in value by quite allot in just a couple of months if not weeks if were talking about ps4 etc
People had less money to spend and games were more pricy, no fast major price drops etc. Allot of titles don't even release for the original high retail prices anymore.
your ad has older games wich already sold allot of copies so naturally price get lower a bit as years go by. However it doesn't happen in just a few weeks like current gen games
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And while inflation is a thing this was allot of money back than
Inflation shows why it was a lot of money back then. $60 in the early to mid 90's had the same purchasing power as $100-110 does today.
Games got cheaper and cheaper to buy with almost every generation, with the only exception being when people jumped from Xbox/PS2 to 360/PS3, as the sticker price rose from an average of $50 to $60.
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(https://www.retrowaste.com/wp-content/gallery/1990s-video-games-ads/1996-super-nintendo-console-games.jpg)
More like 50 - 70 $ before tax except for some compilations of older games that's like 100$ each game
The console was more expensive on release so this is already a bit later considering that street fighter alpha 2 is one of the last snes releases
And while inflation is a thing this was allot of money back than
Chrono trigger was 80 brand new and phantasy star 4 for the sega genesis a whopping 100$ proabably without taxes :o would be like 170 ish for phantasy star 4 excluding taxes.
Don't forget that very few titles hold that 50 60$ mark most drop in value by quite allot in just a couple of months if not weeks if were talking about ps4 etc
People had less money to spend and games were more pricy, no fast major price drops etc. Allot of titles don't even release for the original high retail prices anymore.
your ad has older games wich already sold allot of copies so naturally price get lower a bit as years go by. However it doesn't happen in just a few weeks like current gen games
Did the governemnt or some higher power place a protocol or rule on how they can price their games? I only ask because it seems now a days every single new release is 60 USD if it's not a collectors or limited. Sometimes amazon or walmart has cheaper but it seems regardless of console all 3 of the big consoles have the same starting MSRP. Was this implimented by the government or something? :)
Because based on your ad some games started at 70-100 while others were 50-60. Seems like their was no real governing of it at all. I'm not too in the know of the laws or how it works. But now it seems like their is less guessing involved. every new game will most likely be 60 in the US. :D.
But this is definitely a great reason as to why. It seems like games were insanely priced back then especially with the economy at that time and the buying power of the dollar. Seems like games dropped probably due to the cost to make them because carts were so costly to make and maybe people wouldn't rent anymore because they could afford it outright now :).
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Did the governemnt or some higher power place a protocol or rule on how they can price their games? I only ask because it seems now a days every single new release is 60 USD if it's not a collectors or limited. Sometimes amazon or walmart has cheaper but it seems regardless of console all 3 of the big consoles have the same starting MSRP. Was this implimented by the government or something? :)
It's because of human psychology that we see pricing like this in items. A company can certainly release a game at a lower price point than the average, but it will then carry a stigma of being a lower-quality budget game and will sell less as a result. Conversely, if they instead chose to release the game at a higher price, then the company would need to prove as to why the game is worth more and as such should cost more. However, most people would not find any reason for the price increase to be acceptable, thus also hurting sales, as by raising the price, they're now making the competition look like better deals. Because of this, companies were forced to find other ways to make more money out of their games, and so, because of this, we now have DLC, microtransactions, and lootboxes.
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Did the governemnt or some higher power place a protocol or rule on how they can price their games? I only ask because it seems now a days every single new release is 60 USD if it's not a collectors or limited. Sometimes amazon or walmart has cheaper but it seems regardless of console all 3 of the big consoles have the same starting MSRP. Was this implimented by the government or something? :)
It's because of human psychology that we see pricing like this in items. A company can certainly release a game at a lower price point than the average, but it will then carry a stigma of being a lower-quality budget game and will sell less as a result. Conversely, if they instead chose to release the game at a higher price, then the company would need to prove as to why the game is worth more and as such should cost more. However, most people would not find any reason for the price increase to be acceptable, thus also hurting sales, as by raising the price, they're now making the competition look like better deals. Because of this, companies were forced to find other ways to make more money out of their games, and so, because of this, we now have DLC, microtransactions, and lootboxes.
Titles like chrono trigger and phantasy star IV had bigger format memory cardridges wich resulted in a higher cost if I'm not mistaken. There was a difference but there were exception for crappy games since there were no guide lines.
Not to mention that most new games started off at 60 70 ish Dk country 3 etc before they eventually would lower in price.
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Blame the internet lol.
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Digital killed the rental.
I agree on this as well. But I also can't stand the thought of all video games going digital download only as I prefer physical to digital
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I doubt digital games are ever gonna kill off physical games totally-since honestly, if everyone was flocking to it it probably would've happened already. But rental games are a bit different; nowadays you could probably buy a cheap indie game, a port of an old game, or a full-fledged game on sale if you're particularly lucky for around the same price you'd usually pay for a rental. Digital just kinda replaced the whole "I just want something nice to play for the weekend" niche, and nostalgia aside it's honestly a much more worthwhile option for that
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there is a great series on youtube called ABANDONED and they have a well done examination on the fall of Blockbuster Video and how it might have been saved.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5Jc3_rnLYI
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Ah, rentals. They were a staple of my NES days. I rented often enough that when I got my collection back from my parents I was shocked at how few I actually owned vs. how many I fondly remembered playing frequently. I found a handwritten inventory I made prior to storing it away and I confirmed they were all there. (I was a weird kid)
What I remember was... ??? Warning: Old man, unresearched, ramblings ???
That around the shift from cartridges to discs there was a big push to make rental against licensing rights. Cartridges were a pain to duplicate but CDs? Those were simple, same with DVDs publishers got nervous. This fight was already happening with used PC software sales. I also think the rental joints were getting fatigued with the number of consoles and formats and short shelf life. Compared to a video where a tape or, better yet a disc, could see a decade or more of service. Games were a secondary business for them anyway.
Disc based games also provided a way to reduce the need for game rentals, demo discs. When discs came along, any magazine worth its purchase price had a disc with all the latest games on it. Stores were also getting in on this with stacks of demos near the register to draw in future purchases. At first the demo discs in stores were about $10, then near $5 and finally free. While many were interactive, some were just videos of gameplay. The need for rentals was drying up fast.
Then came digital. Consoles are plugged into the net, games are just 1s and 0s, download the demos and skip having to buy magazines or stop by stores. Same goes for trailers and gameplay footage.
Plus by this time you could do a quick search online and find everything you ever needed to know about a game. These days, with the rise of things like Twitch the demos themselves are seen as unneccisary by many developers and you usually just get trailers and video streamed from other players and reviewers. Things have changed drastically from the days of the occasional magazine, heresay on the playground and even pay-per-minute telephone tip lines.
Back then you were far more likely to pay full price for a crap game. rental was not just fun, it was almost a financial necessity. Now you can watch reviews, watch your friends play live, download it in minutes or have Amazon dispatch a drone and have a physical copy in under an hour. Not much call for rentals anymore.
End of rambling.
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Actually Rental Gaming i feel like still can be a business. Problem is prices. I used to be able to rent games for $7-10 for a week. Now not only games are shorter, and most can be beaten within 1-3 days. But prices for renting from red box... is $5 a day... = a week you might as well buy the game at retail store.
Also when it comes to rarer games, people would steal them, or by accident destroy them.
Video game rentaling wasnt what kept blockbuster and other rental places in bussiness. It was the movies. You would rent 1-2 games. and usually 5-8 movies for a week. = $20-$30. Because of Netflix and streaming services, it ruined main income for those business.
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I feel it's been a combination of factors.
Firstly price; games are relatively cheaper nowadays, back then I might have gotten 2 games a year (granted I was a child). But comparatively my nephew gets at least 5 times that amount nowadays. Renting games was a cheaper alternative (or at least it appeared to be on the surface).
Also digital; it's just made things more convenient. It's also created a platform for smaller titles; which can possible scratch the itch that a rental might have done previously.
It's a shame really; as I have fond memories of rentals.
Most weekends my dad would rent me a game for my SNES; the likes of Super Mario World and Yoshi's Island spring to mind.
And as time went on; I can remember regularly renting the likes of Wild ARMs and Vandal Hearts 2 for PS1. I spent so much renting them that I could have bought them. I did actually get the copies when my local video game store closed down; as my brothers worked there.
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Probably licensing rights, durability and average length of games.
I remember being able to rent NES cartridges anywhere, even the local liquor store. Video stores carried Genesis and SNES when those started coming out. Only a few indie shops dared to break the "no rental" policy of TG16 games in my area. :)
I can't even count how many times I had to return scratched discs to Blockbuster and Hollywood video (both movies and games) that didn't work. The old cartridges always worked. I'm sure people still use the Gamestop "free rental policy" to this day though (7 days to decide if you like that used game). Maybe that last one doesn't apply anymore. The last purchase I made at a Gamestop was a PS4 console.
Most games from the 8-16 bit era could be beat in less than an hour or two (excluding RPGs etc.). Many newer games are much more involved and can't be fully completed in a one night rental. The only time I rent a game now is if Redbox gives me a free one. Not sure if those game discs differ from the retail copies, like taking the special features off the movies etc.