GameFly game availability made clearer

GameFly, the by-mail rental service, has updated their website to clearly state the probability of receiving the next title on your GameQ. Dave Hodess, CEO of GameFly, tells Joystiq, "We developed this new system because the old one understated how much inventory we have in stock. Every day, we had games marked unavailable and then received a tremendous number of them in the return mail. We would ship these immediately to those with open slots in their game queues. The new system will help our members make better informed choices about which games to put into their Q's and how to rank them."

Instead of saying "short wait" or "long wait" there will be an availability determination. Meaning that if the title you dropped in the mail is in the GameFly system as returned or in-transit, availability is how you know what will come next:

Available Now: Game is in stock
High Availability: 75 percent or greater likelihood of shipping today
Medium Availability: 50 percent - 74 percent likelihood of shipping today
Low Availability: 25 percent - 49 percent likelihood of shipping today
Very Low Availability: Less than 25 percent likelihood of shipping today

The new system is expected to give customers a clearer understand of the actual availability of titles than the nebulous "short wait" which plagued the Xbox 360 category. This news, coupled with the imminent opening of an East Coast distribution center means that GameFly is solidifying its position as the game rental destination for those of us who don't have coffers full of cash to drop $60 per game.

Reader Comments (12)

I absolutely love that commercial.

dude, my games come so fast now.
Faster than they used to.

I could make a dirty joke out of that but I won't.

i dont know anyone who uses the game fly service i myself dont see the point and i also hate renting i rather own

you can save ton of money by renting and they give you the option to keep the game for far fewer dollars then retail. that's why you would rent games. it's saved me from making lots of bad purchases

Glad to see they're working on making a more effective web-interface.

Basically the advantage is this: For the price of one game I can get 3 months of unlimited gaming. So while you may play one game a month, I may have the opportunity to play multiple titles. For a gamer, it is a must, as finances are not holding you back from playing all the games which interest you.

You know whats great about gamefly is that I can rent crackdown and just use it for the HALO 3 Beta and return it when i am done instead of buying a game I don't really want.

#3 Gamefly's service is pretty good.

I have been a member for over 2 years. I have purchased new games (literally ones that came out that week) for $25 or less. I'm talking 360 games, as in normally $60+. There rental service I would give a 90% out of 100.

I am now trying GamesNflix, there cheaper than GF, we'll see.....

I've used Gamefly for a couple of years now. The wait times are brutal compared to Netflix (I live in Omaha, NE), so hopefully the East Coast center will speed things up. They need more games in stock though...I've had the new Paper Mario at #1 in my queue since it came out and it's still in low supply. And to "dirty bastard," let me say this: i think game fly is good service i use it to find which games worth buying instead of paying 60 dollar up front plus you get good discount when you member

Oh, one more thing for members, go to Brightspot.tv to get $10 off your Gamefly membership every month. You just have to "watch" some stupid commercials for easy credits. (And no, I don't work for them)

I tried GameFly about a week or so ago and was taken aback by how many games were NOT available. Nothing halfway recent was available, period. I know new releases won't be available (I use Netflix), but even slightly older titles were all still out. It was VERY disappointing. Also, to make matters worse, their queue system wouldn't work. Every time I clicked on the "rent" button, I'd get an empty popup and nothing would happen. So I never got to use their service. Needless to say, I got a full refund. I couldn't see paying for a rental service where all I got to play were old titles that I really didn't care about any more.

Perhaps in the near future we'll have digitally distributed game rentals! Wonder how long that would take to download, though.

I freaking hate GameFly. I tried out their service for about a month and a half. Within that month, They sent about eight games, six of which never arrived to my home and two of which arrived later than expected. After sending in a complaint, they canceled my account and I went to Gamerang.com instead. Gamerang.com isn't that great either, but at least I actually receive my games.

Uh, it's "queue," not "Q." Sorry, but that's pretty basic.

GameFly game availability made clearer

Reader Comments (12)

Posted: May 4th 2007 4:58PM (Unverified) said

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Posted: May 4th 2007 6:33PM kompakter said

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Posted: May 5th 2007 5:36PM CowboyUGA said

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