Gamefly Questions?

[Rodster]

I'm interested in this service. I think it's great for games that only last 8-12 hours long and have little to no replay value. I can see where some games I would still want to buy instead of rent (Oblivion), Racing titles that offer high replay value. Nintendo games as well.

I'm curious to see how you guys use Gamefly i.e. what type of games you rent from the service and what games you buy from the store. Another question is does it save you money or do you still have the same amount of games in your collection or more now that you use Gamefly?

I would only really consider Gamefly for 2 Reasons:
1) Use it as a cheap way to demo a game for as long I like.
2) Use it as a way to play a game that is fairly short (most games are that way today) and has little to no replay value.

I read that the service costs $9.95 per month. I logged onto the Gamefly website and it just has two plans.
Plan #1 $9.95 1st month $14.95 thereafter
Plan #2 $14.95 1st month $21.95 Thereafter

Are some of you guys on a totally different plan for $9.95 a month?

p.s. I posted this in the Prey thread but i'm really interested now in this service. I could see myself drastically reducing my gaming bill every year.

[Pappy Knuckles]

Re: Gamefly Questions?

i started off with the 2 game plan, but now i use the 3 at 28.95 per month. it's worth every penny as far as i'm concerned. i'm saving money and playing games that i otherwise probably would've never gotten around to. i just got fifa and hitman shipped out over the weekend and i'm having a blast with them.

kameo, tiger woods, table tennis, need for speed, gun, etc. these are just some of the games that i'm happy i was able to rent instead of buying!

[TCrouch]

Re: Gamefly Questions?

I used to do the 4 game plan for something like 40 bucks, and my experience went from Fantastic to Hellatious within the span of a year. In my opinion, they grew too fast for their staff or something. I used Gamefly for years, and for the longest time, very few games had waits on them, and the turnaround was always great.

Then, within the last year or so, games would take a week...sometimes two...to get back to them. It used to be 1 day from where I'm at (Central California Coast). I'd send them an email and I'd get canned "While it's been scanned by the USPS, we have yet to receive it" emails. Then they'd remove it from the queue and send me the next game. But I always had to email them and report things as "lost". It started to get old. By the time I sent an email saying "look, I'm ready to cancel my account if I can't find some better method of shipping that's reliable, is anything available? I don't want to lose all of the rewards that I've racked up (10% off all game purchases, etc) by outright cancelling, but I will if something else can't be worked out". Again, I get a canned response: per your request, your account has been cancelled.

Great customer service for a 3 year customer.

The worst thing is, I could have written it off to the USPS having problems...if I didn't use Netflix. They try and tell me that the USPS is suddenly slower, when Netflix still has a 3-day turnaround (1 day there, 2 days back) for any movies I send in? The orange Gamefly envelopes are HONESTLY slower than a red Netflix one? Give me a break.

Service used to be fantastic, then slid into the gutter. If you have a problem, they'll send you another game without question, so that's good. Shady people can rob them blind for 4 or 5 games before there's even a question, I guess. Either way I'm done with them. When I find another service that's dependable I'll give them a try, but I'm never touching Gamefly again. Getting treated to canned email responses (in one case 8 days later) without any method of talking to a real person just pissed me off to no end.

[Pappy Knuckles]

Re: Gamefly Questions?

take his comments with a grain of salt. for the year that i've been there, the longest that i've ever had to wait for a game after being shipped was 4 mail days. i typically get it 2 or 3 days later.

[ExtremeGamer]

Re: Gamefly Questions?

I have to agree with Terry. I signed up for Gamefly, took a week for the first game to get here, and then the 2nd game took 6 days. I cancelled after. My buddy signed up, his first 2 games when he signed up took 11 days, he had contacted them in that time frame to report them missing and then cancelled. He got both is games, and they reported them missing, so he ended up keeping them. He got the 2 games again and sent them back next day.

[Gilateen]

Re: Gamefly Questions?

take his comments with a grain of salt. for the year that i've been there, the longest that i've ever had to wait for a game after being shipped was 4 mail days. i typically get it 2 or 3 days later.

I agree. 3-4 day turnaround for me.

[DaveDQ]

Re: Gamefly Questions?

I guess it's where you live in comparison to the distribution center. I'm cancelling GF because it is literally taking 7-8 days. That's just crazy.

[Pappy Knuckles]

Re: Gamefly Questions?

i'm on the complete opposite side of the country. i guess you guys don't have the wonderful mail service that we do in NC. *does the butterfly*

[Altimus]

Re: Gamefly Questions?

I am currently on the two game plan. I love it. After they ship it I usually get the game in three days. Excellent service.

[Dealin Rams]

Re: Gamefly Questions?

i'm on the complete opposite side of the country. i guess you guys don't have the wonderful mail service that we do in NC. *does the butterfly*

The weird thing is that I'm also in NC. After I get a message that GF has shipped a game I indeed receive it two to three days later. The bad thing is that when I put a game in the mail to return it to them, they don't seem to receive it or process that I've returned it for between 5 to 8 days. So if I put a game in the mail on a Monday morning, I will still not have my next game by the following Monday.

This is just ridiculous, because I used to do Netflix as well, and they had a much quicker turnaround (put a dvd in the mail on Monday, had my next DVD at my door before the weekend).

In any case, that's my biggest problem with GF. I'm on the one-game plan and for now I'm keeping it, because it's still saving me money when compared to all the games I used to buy. But the turnaround time is troublesome, and if a company comes along that can do that better, GF will be losing my money.

[Rodster]

Re: Gamefly Questions?

Thanks for all the feedback guys, it appreciated. Yeah the turnaround time would bug me as well. What worries me more is shipping a game back to them and then getting and email stating it was never shipped or it was lost and now I have to pay for the game.

It wouldn't surprise me if some postal workers who are gamers see Gamefly on the return label and decide it's never getting to the intended address.

How about Netflix do they rent games? If so what do they charge for a comparable plan?

[SoMiss2000]

Re: Gamefly Questions?

I just cancelled for now. My billing date comes up next week and after I get NCAA, I won't be playing anything else over the next month until Madden comes out. I'll reactivate it later i'm sure.

[burnwood]

Re: Gamefly Questions?

Thanks for all the feedback guys, it appreciated. Yeah the turnaround time would bug me as well. What worries me more is shipping a game back to them and then getting and email stating it was never shipped or it was lost and now I have to pay for the game.

It wouldn't surprise me if some postal workers who are gamers see Gamefly on the return label and decide it's never getting to the intended address.

How about Netflix do they rent games? If so what do they charge for a comparable plan?

I use gamefly for a few reasons. One reason, games nowadays have very little replay value costing $50 a pop. The express shipping feature they tought is hit and miss for me. Sometimes the game I send back gets scanned by USPS the first day and my next game in the queue goes out and sometimes it doesn't. The longest I've ever had to wait was 4 days. I can almost predict what day my games will arrive.

Also, the best benefit I like about GameFly is the 10% off all games and free shipping. And then you get rewards on top of that which can decrease your total.

[TCrouch]

Re: Gamefly Questions?

Yep, it was great while it was dependable. As anyone can see, it's a crapshoot depending on your location. The oddity for me is that I'm 212 miles away from their distribution center. I send a game back and they may take a week or more to check it in. I really think that they're just understaffed, and the returned games are just sitting in a "receiving" pile somewhere and they get to them as they get to them. As soon as I sent emails, they were usually "located" rather quickly, so that was always odd.

That, and the fact that Netflix never had anything close to the same issues at the same time. For a couple years, they were great (Gamefly, that is). Then, when problems started coming up, their customer service is probably the worst I've dealt with, which really irritates the hell out of me.

I'm giving Gamerang a shot now to see how they are. But, like Buddy Knox said, take it with a grain of salt. Everybody's experience differs. For 2 years, I was one of their biggest advocates. Now, I can't stand them. Depends on how they treat you, and if you ever even get put into the position for them to treat you poorly.

[Gilateen]

Re: Gamefly Questions?

It wouldn't surprise me if some postal workers who are gamers see Gamefly on the return label and decide it's never getting to the intended address.

I doubt that, my bro is a postal carrier and there are serious offenses for tampering with the mail.

Plus, those carriers dont actually know what game is in the sleeve.