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

[marvelvscapcom2]

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    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.       



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.  .



R.I.P Blockbuster

[burningdoom]

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.

[sworddude]

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.

[soera]

Digital killed the rental.

[dharmajones93]

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 

[emporerdragon]

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?

[98dgreen]

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.

[burningdoom]

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.

[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.

[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]

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.

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

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]

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.