Today, for the first timesince I've been able to resume my gaming hobby, I stopped into a local gamestop. I simply wanted to turn in some of my old outdated games that were taking up space on my shelf, and grab another DS Lite stylus or two. I was greeted with a enthusiastic "hello," and after telling the cashier I was wanting to turn in some games, was informed that I'd recieve an extra 25% on all trade-ins if the money went to the purchase of Halo3 ODST or the preorder of Modern Warfare 2. It sounded like a good deal, so Itold them I'd look around andget back to them on that.

So I went tocheck it out, and decidedI wasn't gonna have enough trade-in value to be worth grabbing ODST. (I was also a bit shocked that it was full price.I think i knew that beforehand, but isn't 60$ a bit much for a three hour campaign and recycled multiplayer content?)It was here, in front of the shelves thatI realized. WOW. Gaming is expensive. This notion was further displayed whenI was told that my Edge card had expired, and that it was going to cost $14.99 just to renew it. Really? I gave theclerk a wide-eyed stare and politely declined. 15$ for a little bit off used games and a little extra trade in value? Maybe in the long run that's reasonable, especially if you trade in games all the time, but I don't. If I know im not going to keep a game very long,I go rent it instead of blowing 60$. Anyways I ended up leaving the store with $5.20(from the gamesI traded in) and no DS stylus (they only came in packages with a bunch of other useless crap that ran the price up to like eightbucks, shocker there).

I left a bit discouraged. How have we been swindled into paying so much for what really is, when you think about it, so little? I realize they keep us entertained, but do avid movie viewers pay 60$ for each new DVD they buy? I don't think so. To me video games just seem expensive. Maybe I'm just cheap. But honestly, being a junior in highschool, with a girlfriend, parents that don't hand you everything you want, and no time for a real job, its a tad excessive don't you think?

However, this incident did bring to mind a growing idea that had been forming in the back of my head. I had heard about netflix, and I knew i had seen a commercialfor something similar with video games instead of movies. So I googled it with fairly low expectations, expecting it to be ridiculously overpriced as well. I was pleasantly shocked. I found this online game rental service by the name of Gamefly. This, on the other hand, sounded extremely low priced. Barring any inconvenient arrivals of annoying small print nuances, this service only costs 16$ a month for unlimitedgame rentals. Of courseyou can only rent one game at a time, but they apparetnly have over 7000 titles over everyconsole, and you may play any game for as long as you want before sending it back in a prepaid package, at which point they automatically send you the next game you want from your wish list.

Now maybe many of you have heard of this. I'm sure the majority of you have. But think for a minute. Isn't this WAY cheaper and more efficient than haunting the shelves of gamestop?? There are several different advantages.

1. How often do you buy a game that comes out just to beat it and turn right around and sell it back to gamestop? Your simply taking 20$ out of your pocket and handing it straight to them. I could understand paying full price for a game with great online multiplayer, but ifyou're just going to race through the single player campaign and waste twenty dollars, why not just rent it?Using an online rental service you could do the same thing with as many different games as you want for under 20$ a month. That seems pretty crazy awesome to me...
2. Its all managed right in your computer and delivered right to your mailbox within one to four days (supposedly), sono more running out to several different locations to look for one hotgame. I guess this also saves gas.

So, in conclusion, I think I'm going to give this a shot. It sounds like an amazing deal to me, and I'm done blowing my money on games i don't have a whole lot of time to play anyways. And I thought I'd share my revelation with you all on gamespot as well :)

God bless!!

3pic9