By Jason_cross (Jason_cross) on Thursday, October 18, 2001 - 02:04 am:
I found a link to this site called RedOctane that rents video games online. It's very similar in structure to the online DVD rental my friend Doug used to use when DVDs were new - you get a prepaid return envelope with your rental, and it's like $7 for a 7-day rental.
http://www.redoctane.com/
But what seemed really interesting to me is the "G2 Rental Program." Basically, you pay a flat fee of $17 a month and you can rent as many games as you want, and keep them as long as you want. The catch is that you can only have two at a time. Send one back, and they send you the next available game in your queue.
Now I don't know how reliable they are, but it seems like a really good idea to me. Generally, there are about half a dozen console games a month I want to rent. But the video store is ALWAYS out when I go, unless the game is a month old, and then the rental times are often too short for me to beat it. $17 a month seems like a good deal if I can rent an RPG and keep it for 3 weeks if I need to, but send back that action game (or crappy game) after two days to get something new. Maybe I won't get games the day they're released or anything, but if it's a game I'm going to rent rather than buy, I can usually wait anyway. And it's not I'll ever be lucky enough to get it from my local video store in that time.
They also seem to have a pretty good selection, even including some popular imports.
So has anyone ever dealt with this company before? I'm tempted to try 'em out - there's a 2-week free trial. I'm just curious if they're reptuable or not.
By Michael Murphy (Murph) on Thursday, October 18, 2001 - 02:06 am:
Sounds like Netflix.
That free trial won't likely give you the "as long as you want" option, but I'm not sure. I've never heard of them, but it sounds intriguing. And $17/month is pretty cheap.
By Dave Long on Thursday, October 18, 2001 - 09:50 am:
They're good. I rented Power Stone 2 from them when Daily Radar was still around. They had a free rental offer. It took awhile to get the game. They ship from the West Coast. They were just starting the rental programs back then and I seriously considered it.
I had Power Stone 2 for plenty of time and the return evnvelope and the transaction were all simple as could be. It's definitely a legitimate and well-run business based on my transaction. They had a ton of imports too though those are the hardest to get.
--Dave