GameFly Review

I’m a fickle gamer. I love games, but I don’t have much time to play games, so when I do sit down with a controller I want the game to be great.

For years, I just bought games new from the local Circuit City. Often, though, I’d get a game home and realize I hated it, and I was out $50. When GameFly started, I thought, this’ll be cheaper than buying the games, and I won’t have to worry if I get a game that I hate–I just send it back and get another.

I’ve been a GameFly member for more than three years now (since January of 2004), and overall I’d give it 3/5 stars. It does work as advertise–they mail me games, and I send them back postage-free in the included mailer. They’ve always given me whatever game I had at the top of my queue, including games that would have been hard to buy in stores. They sell used games at very cheap prices ($20-$35) for the few occasions that I want to buy one.

GameFly has its flaws, though. I live on the East coast, and it literally takes TWO WEEKS to get a new game after I send one back. Actually, sometimes it’s a little shorter–they have a clever service now where the postal service informs them that i’ve mailed a game back. That shaves a couple of days off the round-trip time, but it still takes at least 9 days to get a new game. Plus, they don’t get the notification every time.

Also, I’ve had a lot of games disappearing lately. Literally, since I’ve moved to my new town, about 75% of the games I send back never arrive at GameFly. Either someone is taking them directly from my mailbox, or someone at the post office is stealing them. This happened once or twice at my previous address, but now that it happens most of the time, I have to be suspicious. I’m going to have to start returning them to a post office box (which reduces the convenience factor).

Out of the maybe 40 games that I’ve rented over the last several years, two were damaged. GameFly sent me a replacement promptly (they don’t wait to receive the game, but ship the replacement out as soon as you notify them of the problem).

I’ve tried to find a similar service that offers faster distribution to people on the east coast. GameFly does have several competitors, but none of them are as well-reviewed as GameFly, and people still have the same shipping time complaints. NetFlix, which distributes movies instead of games, has distribution centers throughout the country and so offers very fast turn-around. Unfortunately, there’s no real “NetFlix for games”.

If I do ever cancel GameFly, I’d just buy games used from eBay and then resell them. That’s more trouble, but given the small number of games I play, it’d be much cheaper. Though, if someone at the post office stole a game I bought, I’d be on the hook for it, I suppose.

Add a comment if you have an experience with GameFly or a similar service.