As I'm sure many of us are well aware gaming is not cheap. With games costing $60 no one wants to waste their hard earned cash on a terrible game. There are some cheaper alternatives to getting to play the games you want without having to pay full price. I'm going to talk about some services and the pros and cons of each one.
GAMEFLY
This is probably the biggest of the renting services around. With no late fees and over 7,000 titles it sounds like a great deal. For the most part it is. I've been a gamefly member for a little over a year and never once thought it wasn’t worth the money. I play 10x the amount of games that I did when I was buying games and have saved roughly 1/3 of what I spent per year before it. The only real reason I can boast this is because I don't care what I play. I just enjoy playing the games. However Gamefly does have its problems. With such a large fan base it's difficult to get any new release games. The games are down to VERY LOW QUANTITY (<25%)almost as soon as they appear on the site for rent and some times you will be waiting up to 5-6 months or longer before you can get one. Up till about 2 months ago COD:MW2 was still at LOW Quantity (25%). It also seems like sometimes they just decide to leave out older games. FF6 (gba) for example never moves above Medium (50%) quantity and almost always stays at VERY LOW quantity. If you don't really care what you play that Gamefly is definitely a good idea.
Pros: Lot's of games to choose from. No late fees. Free shipping, and up to 10% off all games.
Cons: Lots of people=Low quantity of new games. Abandonment of older games.
BLOCKBUSTER
Blockbuster started their online rental service not to long ago. They priced it cheaper than Gamefly and offer movies as well. However they only have 3000 titles where Gamefly has 7000. With Blockbuster being focused mostly on movies gaming seems like a second thought, and it shows. Almost ever game has Low Quantity, with some games like Mass Effect 2 for ps3 not even being shipped to Blockbusters online service until October. Another thing about this service is the 5 in store switches. You can take the game you’re renting into any Blockbuster store 5 times a month and switch it with any game there. The problem with this (and this may just be where I live) is that Blockbuster has a relatively small selection games in stores. So again it seems like this service is aimed at movies with games tacked on. The best thing about this service is that you can keep any game you like 25% off. That's awesome. However with Blockbuster going out of business it's not clear how long this service will continue, or if it will improve much.
Pros: Cheaper than Gamefly. 5 in store switches. 25% off.
Cons: Smaller Selection. Main focus on Movies. Blockbuster going out of business.
REDBOX
I don't even need to ask what you think of when you hear Redbox. While they are focused mostly on movies they started adding games to their Kiosks. The games cost $1 a day just like movies. Now many of you may think that this is a terrible idea. I did at first. But let's look at the pricing. A game costs $60 new. So for Redbox that would be something like 55 days (depending on sales tax, {I'm using California Sales tax}) you could keep the game. Now let's look at it like this. Say you go and buy a game that is decent. It has an ok single player and an ok multiplayer but doesn't have many people online. (I'm using 007 Blood Stone for example) It took me roughly 8 hours to beat Blood Stone and I spent maybe 2 hours online. That's 10 hours. That in now way justifies a $60 price tag. Instead of buying the game new for $60 I played the game and it only cost me $1. Not bad right? Again the biggest problem is that they are focused on movies and have maybe 1-3 games per kiosk.
Pros: Potential to be cheap.
Cons: Potential to get pricy. Low amount of games.
GAMESTOP
I know since the rest of these have been about renting you might be wondering what GameStop is doing in this list. I'm going to throw out an idea not many people have thought about, and that is using GameStop as a rental service. GameStop "sells" used games with a 7 day return policy. 6 days if you don't count the day you bought it. If you buy a game from them and play it you can than return it (with the receipt) within 6 days for a full refund. Here's the idea. You "buy" a used game. Play it and on the 6th day, or when you’re finished (whichever comes first) you return it and get another game. If you do it right you will only ever have to pay $60 and will be able to play any game you want. The ability to go in store and pick out a specific game without having to wait for it to be mailed to you is one of the best things about this method. The problems though are that you have to wait for someone to trade the game in used, as you can't return new games. Another problem is that if you pass that 6 day mark without returning the game you just bought it and can only trade it in. There's a lot of room for success and easy savings here, but there's a lot of room for error to, especially with how fickle GameStop employees seem to be on company policy. Exercise caution.
Pros: Possibility to only have to pay $60 once, forever. In store selection=no waiting on mail.
Cons: High possibility for error. GameStop changing policy without notice.
With games not cheap we all need ways to play more and save more. With EA's online pass thing in progress these strategies become harder to use. But hopefully they save you some money. Post a comment letting me know which way of renting games you prefer, or do you just straight up buy games? Also let me know if there are anymore renting services which might help save money.
LEX-1020
We were expecting problems with mod support, but there are a lot of other issues.
This is why you get the GOG version on gog you can select the version of the game to download.
On pc fallout 4 fallout new vegas and skyrim are all broken on steam because they all got the same "next gen" update.
Skyrim dec 2023
https://www.pcgamer.com/sky...
Can not find new vegas but anyone that modded it knows the script extender there was also broken
Not accidental, they want modders to stop modding their older games to force them to mod Shitfield.
There doing the same on starfield with a mods store and blocking mods
There goal is like blizzard and what they did with fallout 76 you make mods they can sell and you become a slave.
On skyrim they have "trusted" mod devs now basically a badge that lets your mod on the store you get a crumb of the sale when someone buys it.
lol to the disagrees, the last Skyrim update broke mods too. They've been trying to kill mods to monetize them in creation club for years, it's not a stretch that they purposely put out patches just to break free mods.
The disagrees are from people who have common sense. They aren't trying to kill mods. Most mods for any game will break with a new update because they rely on files/code that have been changed. This isn't new. Even with Bethesda this would happen way before the creation club. Mod support is literally one of the things that got Bethesda to where they are, and they're one of the only devs that releases comprehensive mod tools for each of their games.
Over 14 GBs and doesn't change much at all? What? Taking up that much drive space for a pathetic 'remastering' is shameful.
Par for Bethesda.
LOL people are actually expecting massive improvements or something? From Bethesda?? the same people who released Skyrim multiple times and the all look like shit? THAT Bethesda? are people for real?
The ps5 version doesn't change a ton but from my small playtime it's enough to make me want to replay it just to have it running at 60.
A side note to this my PS4 version no longer boots after it's "update" so I guess that's what it feels like to own a Bethesda game on PC
As of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.
And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.
Eventually they’ll realize the value is with the employee not the company. Buying an IP means nothing if the people who contributed are let go. They’ll get it one day.
tech is different because they buy threats and then kill them. Twitter bought Vine and did nothing with it. Despite people seemingly liking it. Could've had tiktok a decade before bytedance. go figure.
They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -
A voice actor from The Coalition's third-person shooter series, Gears of War, has hinted at a new game announcement coming in June.
Hopefully Microsoft will go back to the original story line and get away from that woke nonsense from the last Gears game Gears of Woke! But were talking about Microsoft so all the betting money is on more of the same woke nonsense.
The Locust trilogy concluded with Gears of War 3. I don’t get how Gears 4 and 5 are “woke” .
Love Gamefly I usually get any new game the day after release and can Keep it for around $40 after my 10% discount and $5 coupon
Gamefly for me.
Blockbuster doesn't get games in for months! Look at Dead Space 2 for example; doesn't come in until May!
There was an article here a few hrs ago about this new site called gamestaq. It had alot of new games at like $40 but the selection wasnt that big and im not so sure if its legit yet. That one seems to be good though from what I've seen.
I prefer to buy games new and sometimes Ill pick up a used one. Only time I ever payed 60 is for a just released computer game that I really wanted.