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[ComputerMKII]

You can't rent games in my country so I've never known it either

 

[ElRenoRaven]

Just dinking around at lunch and I stumbled upon a website full of blockbuster video memories and it got me tripping down memory lane. That game rentals as I knew them as a kid really aren't a thing anymore kind of blows my mind. I know there is gamefly and I think redbox rents games too, but it's not the same.

When I was in elementary school, my friday routine was set in stone - get out of school, watch afternoon cartoons (this isn't a thing anymore either, wtf??) then head to the video rental store with my sister and rent a movie and game while we waited for the pizza place next door to make out pizza. Then we'd go home, watch some movies while eating pizza, then I'd spend the rest of the night digging into my new-ish game for the weekend, often playing till late into night.

It was such a huge deal to me. Part of the reason it was such a big deal was that, being a kid at the time, I didn't exactly get new video games regularly like I do as an adult. And, in those days, despite having the internet in 89, finding out when games were released was still sort of a crapshoot, and nobody knew every video game ever. Often times, games would just show up on the store shelf to rent. Like, "holy shit, there's a wonderboy 3 now??"

We used to rent from a small place called Movie Shack until they got run out of business for what was at the time the brand new Blockbuster Video. I rented soooo many Sega Master System games this way. You'd only have the box art to go by some times, and that lead to me renting so many awful games. When the Genesis first came out, I must have mistakenly rented Last Battle like 3 times before I committed to memory that the game was garbage. This is also how I found Decap attack.

Renting a terrible game would ruin your damn weekend, lol. Take it home, play a bit, and realize the game sucks... and you got that sinking feeling. And even if the game sucked you'd still play the shit out of it, dammit, because it was a game you didn't have.

I even remember the smell associated with walls of VHS tapes and game cartridges, it was a smell of plastic and silicon. And bubble gum, too. the Movie Shack had a huge bubble gum container in the front of the store by the return desk.

I remember, later on, right before I stopped actually renting games, Blockbuster had a promotion where if you rented a movie and a game, you got a "free" PC game, one of like 8. In actuality, they were giving away Epic Pinball on 3 1/4" floppies board by board. Over the course of several weeks, I got the full version of the game this way.

The other day, I drove past my old movieshack/blockbuster and it's a carpet store now. Just kind of blows my mind that such a huge ritual of my childhood is pretty much no more. Very soon, we will talk to kids about renting movies at stores and they will look at us like we are fucking crazy, lol.

Welcome to the joy of getting old. I look back on so much from my childhood and teens and long for those days so much anymore. I actually now realize how my dad felt and my mom must feel.

 

[Busaiku]

I've never rented a game in the 21 years I'd been playing games.

 

[Krejlooc]

I remember back in 99, the Blockbuster near my house was selling copies of Paper Mario for N64 at $ 15 a pop. They probably had 30 copies of it.

EB Games was offering $ 30 trade in credit for it. I bought 'em all, and traded 'em all in. Pretty much paid for my Dreamcast preorder doing that. Good times.

Once, after I stopped renting games, I went to blockbuster when they were liquidating their N64 stock, and bought Clayfighters Sculptor's Cut, with the box, for like $10.

Take a quick look online to see how much that game goes for now.

 

[Sothpaw]

Steam >>> renting games back in the day. Many times I would rent a game that turned out to be trash then I was stuck with it for the weekend.

 

[JumpJeff84]

Once, after I stopped renting games, I went to blockbuster when they were liquidating their N64 stock, and bought Clayfighters Sculptor's Cut, with the box, for like $10.

Take a quick look online to see how much that game goes for now.

Really? Why the hell is a Clay Fighter game so valuable? Is it just that damn rare?

 

[Zen_Arcade]

Once, after I stopped renting games, I went to blockbuster when they were liquidating their N64 stock, and bought Clayfighters Sculptor's Cut, with the box, for like $10.

Take a quick look online to see how much that game goes for now.

It's so weird that they had retailer exclusive games for rental places.

Really? Why the hell is a Clay Fighter game so valuable? Is it just that damn rare?

That version was Blockbuster exclusive. You couldn't buy it anywhere.

Interplay later updated ClayFighter 63⅓ with a "special edition" titled ClayFighter: Sculptor's Cut, which was released as a Blockbuster Video rental exclusive in North America on May 15, 1998. Although this version could only be rented and not purchased from the video chain, Blockbuster did give customers the opportunity to win a copy of the game through an online contest. Sculptor's Cut contains new storylines, easier menu navigation, further adjustments to the combat system, a new introduction sequence with vocal lyrics, and other minor changes. Most prominently, Sculptor's Cut re-added four of the five characters that were removed for the game's first release, in addition to the original twelve fighters.The fifth character removed from ClayFighter 63⅓ was Hobo Cop, depicted as a homeless vigilante that consumes alcohol. Hobo Cop was not featured in Sculptor's Cut because Nintendo did not approve of the character.

 

[Timeaisis]

I played so many gems from renting. I miss it too.

Friday night with my little brother, ordering pizza, renting a game. Staying up till ungodly hours playing said game. Had lots of great fun with that.

Would've never played countless games without it, or experienced the joy of Friday/Saturday night pizza/game/movie night as a child. What dreams are made of, folks.

I still remember getting my brother and some neighbor kids over to play the original Smash Bros. after seeing it in a Blockbuster. Ordered a pizza and played it all night and all weekend.

 

[LookAtMeGo]

My brother in law was a manager at a blockbuster and he actually had people call me at home about questions they had about any games when I was like 14-15 lol.

 

[Baron Von Beans]

One of the coolest times ever was renting a whole console. We really only had a PC for games in those days so it was a pretty special experience. There was a weekend we got a Sega Saturn from Blockbuster with Virtua Fighter and Sega Rally Championship and we played it ever so much.

I'm not sure how much that cost overall, but I imagine doing it more than a few times would rapidly approach the cost of a console.

MAN, console renting was expensive, but awesome. I worked at a Blockbuster and Gamestop when the GBA came out. I rented the GBA from Blockbuster 3 weeks before it hit retail shelves, and it cost me 20 bucks. It was amazing at the time lol. Still is, I think! But walking in to that Gamestop with the massive black suitcase that went with the GBA, and then whippin that thing out, the looks on my coworkers faces were pretty priceless.

 

[Krejlooc]

I've never rented a game in the 21 years I'd been playing games.

That's because it sounds like you were born in like 1995, which is when this stuff started to decline.

 

[Harmen]

The only games I ever rented were some crappy PC games at the local library. As for console games, the video rentals used to rent them as well over here, but I guess I was spoiled and just got a lot of games from my parents.

I am not aware of any renting service now though (except for online stuff like PSnow). I live in the Netherlands.

 

[Semajer]

Oh yes, like the thrill of rushing to the rental shop every week with the hopes that Pokemon Stadium 2 is there, only to be told the the arsehole that is currently renting it is late returning it. WEEK AFTER WEEK AFTER WEEK.

 

[Timeaisis]

Also, definitely not the same as Redbox or Gamefly. Blockbuster and other stores had whole aisles upon aisles of games. Walking around with your little brother or friend or whoever and picking a game to dive into that weekend was half the fun. You'd never be able to find hidden gems from Redbox or Gamefly, they only ever carry the hot newest releases most of the time.

 

[Krejlooc]

Really? Why the hell is a Clay Fighter game so valuable? Is it just that damn rare?

It was never available for sale. My local blockbuster wasn't supposed to sell it, either. It was a rental-only game.

It's so weird that they had retailer exclusive games for rental places.

That version was Blockbuster exclusive. You couldn't buy it anywhere.

The original Clay Fighters on the SNES had the blockbuster-exclusive Tournament Edition, as well.

 

[bennywhatever]

I never really rented many games growing up. I do have 2 memories though:

Winback. That was one hell of a game and I rented it 3 times but for some reason never bought it. Loved it to death.

The other memory was one time I asked my mom to rent a game on her way home from work for me. I'm like 12 or so at the time. She comes home with fking Quake 64. I'm not even allowed to watch R movies or play any M game, and she knowingly picked out one of the most mature games for the 64 for me to play all weekend. I felt really weird playing it and ended up hating it.

 

[Kadmac25]

OP, you hit it on the head. I have the same type of memories and I really miss those days. Redbox and Gamefly are definitely not the same. For example, you could hold the game box in your hand and look at the back. Redbox you just walk up and see a cover to make your decision. Something about the store smell too that brings back fond memories, just as you mentioned.

Man was it an exciting Friday if you got pizza, a movie, and a video game rental. I also heard that Saturday morning cartoons aren't a thing anymore. Everything is on demand.

 

[Violence Jack]

I remember my parents driving me over to Blockbuster to rent a game for the weekend with my allowance. I miss the days where I could walk into a rental place and rent a console.

I have Gamefly, and will go the Redbox route if I'm desperate. But I do miss video/game rental shops on a Friday night.

 

[LookAtMeGo]

Thats it. Im looking up if there is any local places to still rent games from and I'm going.

 

[Northeastmonk]

I remember back in 99, the Blockbuster near my house was selling copies of Paper Mario for N64 at $ 15 a pop. They probably had 30 copies of it.

EB Games was offering $ 30 trade in credit for it. I bought 'em all, and traded 'em all in. Pretty much paid for my Dreamcast preorder doing that. Good times.

I remember the Blockbuster was having a sale on all their items because the stores were all closing up here. I ended up getting a few titles for real cheap, like Star Ocean on Xbox 360. That game was horrible, but with a limited selection I had to pick. I also ended up getting FEAR 2 for $10.

My biggest problem with that type of deal is that games now have a much larger scope on them than they did 10+ years ago. You're in for an experience and you don't have too many people doing things differently. Meaning the genres are all geared in their own way. This means backtracking or finding an obscure game or something that may of been a sleeper hit is nonexistent. You're better off knowing a head of time and understanding what came out in the entire year than actually going to the store and searching for games.

We know the games coming out a month from now and etc. The most we will do is find the title that we remember and purchase it somewhere for cheap.

You can't really do what you did again unless it's online and you've sold an early copy. You aren't going to sell 15 copies of Call of Duty to buy your XBox One or PS4. You're going to have to make an online store or sell it to people on the side.

 

[Stevey]

I'm 31 and I've never rented a game.

 

[Woodchipper]

Still one of my fondest gaming memories is when I rented a PS1 (the original one with the old controllers) along with Ridge Racer and Rally Cross. Not the best games perhaps, but I was like 7 years old back then so to me the 3d graphics was cool enough.

 

[Krejlooc]

I remember when, early on, they'd stuff the manual in the rental box. Then assholes started keeping the manual, so they were only available upon request. Sometimes you needed those manuals to play the games.

Eventually, they started typing up pseudo-manuals on the back covers of the boxes you rented.

I still have the manual to Buck Rogers Countdown to Doom that I accidentally kept, lol. The thing is like 200 pages long.

 

[Dreamwriter]

Me and my friend were crazy, we'd go to the rental store and wait there for someone to return the game we wanted to rent. We'd spend hours there hanging out, chatting with the employees. I think this happened most when we wanted to rent a Super NES and a game when the system first came out (I spent way more than the cost of a SNES renting them...)

 

[Ledhead]

Rented a few games before Blockbuster went out of business. Was always pretty exciting, especially since I didn't have the cash to burn on games like I do now and had to be selective in what I rented/bought.

 

[Ploid 3.0]

Uh, OP...

Yep, and I rented games as a kid, it's the exact same. Even PS+ Now or whatever. Also Gamefly especially.

 

[E92 M3]

They'll also never know the excitement of getting a demo disc full of small snatches of games they've never heard of, either.

I had an OPM subscription purely for the demo discs. That first disc, with Intelligent Qube, Parappa, Ace Combat 2, and Fighting Force was magic.

I miss those times!

OP: Your Friday ritual sounded great! I truly understand where you're going with this thread. It's something I miss a lot.

 

[Krejlooc]

Me and my friend were crazy, we'd go to the rental store and wait there for someone to return the game we wanted to rent. We'd spend hours there hanging out, chatting with the employees. I think this happened most when we wanted to rent a Super NES and a game when the system first came out (I spent way more than the cost of a SNES renting them...)

I remember this one dude kept a game out that I had been waiting to rent for weeks, it was severely overdue. So I had kept coming back to rent the game, and the employees noticed. So once, when I asked if they had it in the return bins, this girl actually looked up the dude who rented the game and called him and was like "if you're done with the game, you should really bring it back, because there is a kid here who keeps checking back to see if you've returned it yet. He sounds like he's dying to play the game."

The next week I went back, it was in stock

 

[Skelter]

I never found joy in renting games as kid.

 

[CaptainGyro]

I never really found renting a game to be thrilling either. To me renting a game meant trying out something that I wasn't sure that I wanted to play . Going to the store to buy a new game that I knew I wanted was awesome though.

 

[Mugatu]

Awesome write up but I think the deeper issue here is that we dealt with scarcity (time, money, information, etc.) with respect to gaming while growing up and a lot of people now don't. And while that abundance is fine, nobody would freely give it up, you do lose something in the experience because of it.

 

[LookAtMeGo]

I remember when, early on, they'd stuff the manual in the rental box. Then assholes started keeping the manual, so they were only available upon request. Sometimes you needed those manuals to play the games.

Eventually, they started typing up pseudo-manuals on the back covers of the boxes you rented.

I still have the manual to Buck Rogers Countdown to Doom that I accidentally kept, lol. The thing is like 200 pages long.

I actually wrote notes about the game in the notes section and returned them.

Like Meryls codec number in MGS.

Spoiler

i know its on the back of the case

 

[Blues1990]

I personally don't miss going to movie rental stores, especially since I can check up reviews & pick up the games that I want, rather than second guessing what is fun to play & what isn't.

 

[Pokedude1013]

I grew up during that time and I never rented a single game.
I did BUY OoT at blockbuster used though.

 

[Krejlooc]

I actually wrote notes about the game in the notes section and returned them.

Like Meryls codec number in MGS.

Spoiler

i know its on the back of the case

I used to fill out the highscore table in the back of many early Genesis manuals, haha

what a damn blast from the past

 

[FalsettoVibe]

I miss the entire act of renting video games/movies at a blockbuster. The not knowing what you would get, the walking the isles, the candy, the discounted games and movies for sale. The feeling of waiting at the dropbox in the front of the store, hoping that the next customer would return the game or movie you wanted......and to get it was pure bliss!! Ahh.....the SNES and Gamecube games I rented. I remember my neighbor rented a PS1. I was so amazed.

 

[Metalingus5150]

I used to go with my cousin to rent movies and games so often at my local video store that they let me do it without any parental supervision. lol

 

[Kalm]

My parents used to take me to Rogers Video to rent a game most Fridays.

I'd occasionally do this sh*tty thing where I'd pretend to be completely torn between two games and they'd eventually get impatient and let me get both.

Kids are awful.

 

[CaptainGyro]

Hmmmm, give up all the great benefits of living near a large diverse population like great food, cultural festivals, better job opportunity (for me at least) and just a diverse of things to do for the ability to........rent videos like the old days?

No thank you, lol.

I live in the midwest ( Chicago area) and I get all those things. I do agree it's pretty silly to have people move just for Family Video though

 

[Kadmac25]

Growing up, we couldn't afford to buy a lot of games so renting was the way to go for me. I remember renting the same game many times if I liked it a lot (A link to the Past).

I do remember renting Chrono Trigger when it first came out. I first found out about it in Nintendo Power. Once released, rented it right away! I fell in love with that game! I knew I had to own it. I managed to sell some things and went with my older brother to Babbages to buy it. I will never forget opening it for the first time. Great game and great memories.

In regards to renting games and not liking them, I found that rarely happened to me during the SNES era due to Nintendo Power covering a lot of great games. It seemed to happen to me more during the NES era.

 

[protomouse]

I hear you Krejlooc. When I was a kid, my parents rented me NES games all the time. As I grew up, you could still rent both consoles and games from local video stores - and I often did.

It was special, and now it's all gone. It's a shame.

I live in Sweden btw. Rental is dead here.

 

[flyinpiranha]

Gamefly is still exciting, especially during the doldrums of last spring and summer. I add a bunch of games to my list, and when they show up at my front door it's like a mini-Christmas.

Yep. GF is my main way of playing PS4 games.

 

[ShirAhava]

I rented almost the entire Sega Genesis catalog from 1991 to 1998....I played everything

Redbox, gamefly ect. is not at all the same experience

Having a PLACE....meeting other people with like minds and interests same reason I miss arcades *sigh*

Threats like this make me understand why I don't game much anymore so much of the proto culture has been lost.

 

[Zaku]

My parents used to take me to Rogers Video to rent a game most Fridays.

I'd occasionally do this sh*tty thing where I'd pretend to be completely torn between two games and they'd eventually get impatient and let me get both.

Kids are awful.

My parents made me choose, handing me $20 and telling me it had to last me a week.

So I chose smart and took my business to Microplay, which had a deal where it cost $10 to rent two games for a week. I'd pick up an action game for the weekend, and my second slot would be occupied with whatever JRPG was popular at the time until I beat it.

I remember I kept one of the store's three copies of Chrono Trigger rented for a solid month right around the time it came out. Every time I heard someone ask about it while I was browsing to replace the one game I'd returned, I'd smile.

Children are evil, as far as I remember.

 

[petran79]

Cartridge games at least were very adamant to kids misuse. I never had any issues with rented Gameboy titles.
VHS tapes could tolerate some dirt as well. Though eventually you had to open the VHS and remove the hanged tape from the head.

CD-ROM based games had mostly scratches, but this also worked as a copy protection in a sense. Same for DVDs. But sometimes they wouldnt work at all.

But more important than renting was exchanging games with friends. Renting and borrowing went hand to hand. Sometimes you could borrow a rented game but had to give it back soon! I gave my friend a game he wanted and I had finished, he gave me his. He was surprised once because I had finished TMNT on the NES, since he couldnt. While he beat the original Castlevania and Zelda 1, something I couldnt do. So one could boast "I did this and that in the game" and demonstrate it too.


This did last up in the late-90s. We borrowed titles on PC. Never copied them to hard drive though, this would ruin the purpose of borrowing. While the guys that had Amigas, simply copied the floppies for a small fee. Eg 100 floppies for 20 DM. They went overboard with piracy, but at that time no one could blame them. Games, music, movies, were all for share

 

[IdreamofHIME]

Every Saturday morning i would help my brother in his store and he'd pay me with a weekend game rental and pizza for me and a friend that night.
Best salary I ever had.

 

[ShemhazaiX]

Tbf, I've been gaming since 1994 and I've known one person who rented games.

It's not like it was ever the most common thing in the world.

 

[thefro]

Like...I don't think people who have used online only rental places understand how exciting it was to go rent a game you want and the game actually being there, or even better...thinking the game is gone and asking a guy at the front desk if it's available and it recently arriving. It was like gambling, and if you didn't win then you had to settle for another game that might or might not end up being good just by how the box art and screenshots looked. No extensive previews of the game or anything.

Yeah, I think it was 4-5 weeks before Mario 3 was actually in and available to rent (my Mom may have ended up reserving it now that I think about it), and another couple months before we were actually able to buy a copy. That launch was the craziest I can remember.

You're right that if your choice A wasn't in, you were probably left looking at box art and guessing if you didn't recognize something from Nintendo Power that looked cool.

 

[Ballistik]

I had a bunch of N64 games, but I never owned Star Fox 64 when it was released. Instead I rented it at least six times at blockbuster. Don't ask me why, I was a dumb kid.

 

[Stumpokapow]

Of course they also won't know the thrill of having to yell at their mom for picking up the phone while they're trying to download something.