Um...

"This move for video games in Blockbuster doesn't seem so much like a sign of respect for the growing games industry, but as another desperate move by a company that's struggling to survive."

I work at a Blockbuster here in Central Florida, and this simply isn't true. The company as a whole is posting record profits. My store isn't even particularly busy, but we're doubling and sometimes tripling last year's numbers.

As far as the new release wall, it's true. And I think the wall looks good. The company's direction is going to be getting rid of the older stuff (anything more than a year old) and moving toward more new stuff and more games.

It also helps that the Movie Gallery, Movie Buffs and Mom and Pop shops around here are struggling to survive. We have raised our rental prices to almost $5 a pop just because we can.

so has anybody else figured out why the hell blockbuster would buy circuit city, because i sure as shit don't know.

PODCAST STAT!

Blockbuster is absolutely ridiculous. Its wiser to buy a game and turn around an ebay it a few weeks later, rather than bending over for $8 a rental.

Erol's FTW!

Why would you rent a game like GTA 4? You already should know what its going to be like, and its not like you can even come close to finishing it in 5 days. The $8+ could go towards the inevitable purchasing of the game.

Good Riddance. Blockbuster's late fee tactics of the 90s is finally catching up with them. The fact that they would edit some really great films to make them more "Blockbuster-friendly" was also pitiful. They also had a horrible selection of foreign films and rarely carried any of the really good Criterion releases.

I really can't think of anything good to say about them.

That came off as really arrogant, and it's true, as a company, they can pretty well charge what they want. That wasn't me personally being arrogant. I'm just a lackey within the company. I am its puppet, and it sucks, but it's a job.

Did I say I agree with it? No. I think rentals should be significantly lower, half that sounds reasonable to me. Especially considering how many people shuck rentals in favor of just downloading the thing.

Should game rentals not be 8 bucks a pop? I don't know honestly. I had GameFly for a minute but the Tampa center wasn't open yet so I wasn't getting them fast enough. Considering games now are 60 dollars, the company did have to raise the rental rates based on the fact that there are some games that simply will not rent well. i.e. Vampire Rain. I can see that. Do I agree with it? No.

I just disagree with some of what the original post had to say. Blockbuster as a whole is not hurting for cash.

This is a good move by "The Block," as i've been calling them since we slept together.

Now all they need to do is hire a big corporate law firm, sell all of their commercial real estate, lay off all of there employees, and sell off all inventory to some predatory liquidator ... then the turnaround will be complete.

Much success!

Unfortunately, I am a member of Blockbuster's online rental deal. I would join Netflix, but with Blockbuster, you can return a movie you got in the mail to the store and get a free rantal. And they still ship out the next movie in your queue.
Really, they should adopt the policy of those rental kiosk machines. Charge a dollar a day, period. If you keep the movie for a week, you pay 7 bucks. And if you keep it for a certain amount of time, they'll charge you for the price of the movie and you can keep it. It's simple and a lot better than crappy late fees.

I'm pretty sure I saw 'Into the Blue' on that 'sacred' wall.

I get a lot of used games there. Batman Begins (GC) for $2.99, Super Dragon Ball Z (PS2) $6.99, Bioshock (360) $29.99...

I'm into bargain hunting. =)

the idea behind this and the circuit city buy are the same: they are trying to enter the market as an all-in-one media service provider. Imagine walking into Circuit City and being able to rent from them instead of buy a movie, or walking into a Blockbuster and being able to buy an HD TV, blu-ray player, and rent a blu-ray movie. Putting GTA IV on the wall is a way to draw attention to the fact that Blockbuster sells games. Trust me, we'd rather you buy the game than renting it, as we rarely make back our money on the game before it's scratched and ruined.

With that said, I'm getting tired of the company. Jim Keyes has some decent ideas, but they are going about it in a piss poor way, focusing on presales and special rental deals rather than fixing their selection and customer services. They want money. Oh well.

I was in Blockbuster a few days ago, and I noticed that one of the new release walls where movies go was set up for GTAIV boxes. An old woman who was in front of me in line asked why there weren't any copies of that movie on the wall. As she was trying to explain to the clerk how much she wanted to see that movie, the clerk told her that it was a video game, not a movie, and it was goin to come out next week. The confused old lady simply walked away after hearing that. The whole exchange made me giggle.