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The great Gamefly experiment
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Thu, 17 Jan 2013 00:52:44
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Okay so this marks attempt #3 for me using Gamefly. Here's a brief summary of the first two times I tried it.

#1. Autumn of 2008 - The very first time I tried it and I focused mainly on handheld games. That's how I got to play Phoenix Wright back when it was a hard as hell game to find. Turn-around time was slow, but I had the 2 games out at a time system and overall it seemed to work. Eventually after playing (and enjoying Wii Music) I decided to just purchase my games for a while and I bought Wii Music at a discount and cancelled the subscription for a while.  Overall a good experience, but turn-around was a little too long for my taste, taking usually a week and a half or more to get a new game.

#2. Spring of 2012 - Very short experiment at the start of last year. I did a one game out at a time subscription and it was ultimately a mistake. Turn around time should have been better since they had since opened up a fulfillment center 100 miles from where I live, but my first game still took over a week to be delivered (though the second one arrived in half the time). After just over a month I discontinued my subscription. There was a big change though and they now offer a variety of free-to-play PC games. Some of them are recognizeable and were B-level hits from a couple years ago. i.e. XIII, Sid Meier's Pirates, World of Goo, and Dairy Queen Tycoon (everyone wants to play that right?)

So that brings us back to today. Looking back on it I've decided to give the two game subscription a second shot. Just seems a more cost effective way to play games, and even if I don't have two out at a time, at least I'll have the second one ready to go. Plus, even at $22 dollars it's still just over 1/3 the cost of a new game a month.

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Thu, 17 Jan 2013 00:54:06
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Anyway things are off to a good start so far.  I got Dishonored, and Lollipop Chainsaw after 3 days of starting up the account. Good enough turn-around time for me. I wasn't able to get any of the games in my top 3 choices, but Lollipop Chainsaw was #4 so I suppose that's a decent enough start. Hopefully I'll be able to finish this quickly and then turn it around for something new next week, which I'm hoping will be either Anarchy Reigns or Ni No Kuni.

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Thu, 17 Jan 2013 09:44:17
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I've used the Canadian equivalent (GameAccess) for almost four years. It's been both completely awesome and also left a bad taste in my mouth at times, but for $21 a month I always found that the overall value proposition was fairly good. I only get one game at a time, but the turnaround can be only two or three days because I've been a member so long and get certain features, such as alerting them that I've sent a game back, for free. (I also live less than 20 miles from their nearest distribution centre. That helps WinkWink)

Plus, I know my habits. If I rented two games at once I'd never play either of them. One at a time is enough 'cause I'll focus on it. Currently I've got a disc copy of The Walking Dead sitting in my PS3.
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Thu, 17 Jan 2013 12:44:26
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I can barely play one game at a time these days. Usually outside of the weekends it's rare I get that much time to play anything at all. But in the past the turn-around time is just too long, so I'm really considering the second game to just be one to hang onto during what was normally the downtime. Plus, I think once I get my hands on a really long RPG like Ni No Kuni, I'll take the opportunity to rent my kid something that I wouldn't want to buy for him like Mario Party 9.

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Sun, 20 Jan 2013 12:00:00
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Do you get games and movies as a package?

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Sun, 20 Jan 2013 14:03:27
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No. Gamefly only does games. It's interesting, but no company offers direct-to-home movies and games. Netflix said they were going to do it about a year ago, back when they talked about splitting up their company and everyone followed that up with cries and howls of how the company is doomed and what a horrible idea it was. And shortly after all the complaining they decided against all of it.

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Sun, 20 Jan 2013 14:04:52
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Oh and I finished Lollipop Chainsaw last night. So tomorrow I'll send it back and then the real test for Gamefly will begin. How quickly they can send a new game back. This will likely be the determining factor of whether or not I'll keep the account going or not.

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Thu, 24 Jan 2013 23:51:59
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Well Gamefly can suck my finely shorn nutsack today. I returned Lollipop Chainsaw and Dishonored earlier in the week, and today they swapped them out and gave me notification for my next two games..... I am not happy with the selection. Here's a glimpse at my Q's top 10.

  1. Ni No Kuni - low availability
  2. Anarchy Reigns - Medium availability
  3. X-Com - Medium availability
  4. Zombie U - Medium availability
  5. Mario Party 9 - High availability
  6. Tekken Tag Tournament 2 - low availability
  7. Last Story - High availability
  8. Pikmin 2 - Available Now
  9. DMC - Medium availability
  10. Kirby's Dream Collection - available now

Somehow I ended up with Mario Party and Kirby's Dream Collection which were both meant for my son. I have no idea how they managed to pull the two games I had no interest in at all. I thought those were spaced out far enough that there was no way they could both be sent at the same time. Needless to say I'm not going to be playing much of anything this weekend now.... should have kept Dishonored and just pretended it was fun.

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Sat, 26 Jan 2013 07:35:36
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Be a good sport and play Kirby and Mario Party with the boy!

I've also been wondering.  Wouldn't something like PSN+ work better for you and be more cost effective?  Or maybe you could have that in addition so that there was still the slim chance to get relatively new games with gamefly

___

Listen to Wu-Tang and watch Kung-Fu

The VG Press

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Sat, 26 Jan 2013 14:19:08

He and I will play some of it this weekend.  I'm kind of done with the Mario Party games (he and his sister can play that), but we'll play some Kirby together. I can't send them back until Monday so by then I'll figure out which one he's having more fun with, and let him keep that for a while.

Anyway there's two reasons why I'm not going with PSN+ . First you never quite know what you'll get. The games they offer are usually decent, but right now I want to play the games that I want to play. It's not a huge list, but I still think I can get it to work one way or another with Gamefly. Second, it won't help me play any of the Wii U games I want to play.

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Fri, 01 Feb 2013 01:23:27

HA HA!!! Anarchy Reigns is coming bitches!!!! This will played. This will be enjoyed. Greatly.

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