GameFly is a video game rental service that delivers your selections through the mail. If you like to try out a lot of different video games, you've got to try GameFly.Please Try GameFly One of my favorite things that I tried in 2006 is GameFly. If you're familiar with NetFlix, then all I need to say about it is it's the NetFlix of video game rentals.
In case you haven't used NetFlix, here's how GameFly works. You visit the GameFly website and browse their huge catalog of video games. They have games for all of the current systems that anybody is likely to have. You make a list of the games you like, and they keep track of your list on their website. As soon as they can, they send you the first two games on your list. They send them by U.S. mail. You can keep the games as long as you want. When you're done with them, you send them back to GameFly in a special envelope that GameFly sends you with the game. You don't have to pay for postage or anything, you just put the game into the special envelope and drop it into any mailbox. When GameFly receives the game you sent back, they send you the next one that was on your list. You don't have to send the two games back at once, you send them back individually, and every time they get one back from you they send the next one on your list right out to you.
So far, this sounds exactly like how NetFlix works. But there's one small difference. GameFly has some kind of deal with the Post Office that the Post Office in your town is able to scan your game when they sort it, and the Post Office notifies GameFly that you've dropped your return game in the mail. When GameFly receives notification from the Post Office that you've sent a game in, they immediately send you the next game on your list. So in that way, they send your new game out to you even before they received your old one. Before Christmas, I actually received an email from GameFly confirming my return the exact same day that I put the game in the mail. I dropped it in the mail in the morning, and by the afternoon, I had an email telling me they confirmed its return. Two days later, I had my new game in my mailbox.
So they certainly have the lightning-fast shipping and turn-around time down. But that doesn't do you much good if they don't have any games. But they have games. They have way more games than you'd ever find at Blockbuster or Hollywood Video. They have all the new releases, of course, but they also have a fantastic library of older games and games for older systems, too. For example, I never had a GameCube but there were a lot of GameCube games I wanted to play from years gone by. When I got my Nintendo Wii, I felt like playing a lot of the old GameCube games I missed. Since the Wii plays GameCube games, I decided to go back through the reviews on IGN and GamePro and make a huge list of all the GameCube games that got good ratings. I made my list and every single one of the games I wanted was on GameFly, for a system that's not even the most current one.
I was also glad to see that they lend Nintendo DS games, too. That's a lot of fun. There are a lot of DS games I'd like to try without necessarily buying, and with GameFly I can try a DS game for a couple of days and just send it back when I'm done with it.
The other thing I like about GameFly is that they sell their games. So if you get a game that you really like, like Batallion Wars for example, you can just go to the website and click the button that says "Keep It!" When you do that, they charge you for the game, but they only charge you what you'd pay for it in a used shop like GameStop or EB Games. They immediately send out the next game on your list, you keep the one that you wanted to buy, and within five days they deliver to you (free shipping) the brand new case and manual for the game you bought. It's a great service and a great way to build your game library with titles you already know you like.
I hope you
try GameFly, and I hope you like it.
Labels: games, serious, services, text, unsolicited opinions