Around the Web: For the hardcore gamer, GameFly is essential

Find out why game lovers will love GameFly

If you’re a hardcore gamer, meaning someone who eats, sleeps and live games, GameFly is one of the best services you’ll ever use. The service’s homepage touts that it offers over 8,000 console games for rent, discounted purchases of used games for members, no late fees, the ability to cancel anytime you want and free PC games for members.

As a member of GameFly, I can certainly agree that it’s a great service.

The value

Living in today’s world (especially with the weak economy) isn’t easy when it comes to paying for the essentials like food and clothing, but when it comes to entertainment, it’s even more difficult.

There’s nothing worse than paying upwards of $65 for a console game only to have it be a huge disappointment, have game-breaking glitches or online issues (I’m looking at you, Sim City), or to complete it in one or two sit-downs.

Then there are those of us who own multiple systems and can’t possibly keep up with all the great games. But this is where GameFly make sense. I used to buy a lot of games only to turn around and trade them in, sell them on eBay or Craigslist, or throw them on my shelf to collect dust. This would happen either because I ended up not liking the game, got bored quickly or just didn’t have time to play it until months later when I could have bought it much cheaper.

With GameFly, all those problems fly away. I can rent a game, play it, send it back and, if I like it, buy it later on or I can complete the game (since there are no late fees) and avoid buying it all together. Not only has this saved me money, but it’s allowed me to play a lot of games I wouldn’t otherwise give any attention.

In addition, pricing is pretty fair. It’s about $17 a month for one game out at a time, $23 for 2 games out at a time, etc. They have pricing plans that go all the way up to five games out at a time. Of course, if your turnaround time isn’t fast enough, the value decreases.

Shipping problems

Now, I’ve heard the complaints and they are certainly valid. One major problem with GameFly is that their shipping facilities are few and far between. This causes games to take a long time to arrive at their destination. If you’re located too far from a shipping center, it can take more than a week to get a new game to play and since it’s a monthly subscription-based service, this lowers the value greatly.

Here in Sacramento, it’s not a big deal because we have a shipping center in Los Angeles so turnaround time on games is fairly quick. If I ship a game back on a Monday, it’ll make it to LA by Wednesday or Thursday and I usually have another game to play by Friday or Saturday. Not bad, having a game to play every weekend. I can definitely see why it would be annoying to have to wait longer though.

According to GameFly’s website, the company ships from Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Tampa, Austin, and Seattle. They also state that more shipping centers are on the way, but for now, gamers who aren’t located near these locations probably won’t see as great of a value in the service.

Getting the games you want to play, when you want to play them

There’s also the issue of having difficulty getting the games in the GameQ in the order you actually want to get them. The GameQ is your queue that lists all the games you want to rent, in priority order. It’s supposed to work as follows: when you send a game back, the next one on the list ships to you, but unfortunately, that’s not always the case. GameFly only has so many copies of each game available so it is often times extremely difficult to get the ones you want, when you want them.

For me, this is really the only complaint I have about the service.

Regardless, the amazing used game prices (like getting new releases for $45), the free shipping, the fact that used games from GameFly are in excellent condition and include all DLC and online codes, the overall value of the service and added bonus of the site’s game reviews, the ability to cancel and restart anytime you want, news section and access to tons of great PC games (powered by the GameFly-owned Direct2Drive) make for a service that’s worth trying out.

For more on GameFly, visit www.gamefly.com.