GameFly's Austin center 'officially' open, servicing seven states

by Alexander Sliwinski { Jun 11th 2008 at 3:00AM }

Last month, GameFly was nice enough to drop us a line that it had opened a new distribution center in Austin, Texas. The by-mail rental service's new site wasn't fully operational at the time, but the company tells us the warehouse is now ready to cover seven states. The Austin site will initially service Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and New Mexico. More Midwest states could be added in the future.

Jeff Kawasugi, VP of logistics at GameFly, says the Austin site will allow "the quickest shipping times" to the members in the aforementioned states. Over the years we've seen our GameFly shipment times drop dramatically. Turnaround of two weeks (or more) was normal when the service first started, and now it's down to about five business days. The main issue with the service seems to have shifted from turnaround time to availability of titles as the company has increased its customer base.

Tags: austin, gamefly

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

francisco @ Jun 11th 2008 3:17AM

sweet! i live in houston so that makes me a very happy renter.

OMGOMG @ Jun 11th 2008 3:41AM

That's Screwston to you, francisco. :)

Trippy Haps @ Jun 11th 2008 4:40AM

Good news. I've been considering a subscription and this is probably the nudge I needed.

...Seriously, though, guys...read that headline a couple of times and tell me it doesn't sound, ya' know...smutty? XD

Kye - M-Kart Wii 0817-4620-2062 @ Jun 11th 2008 5:57AM

I really like his outfit.

Ghen @ Jun 11th 2008 8:14AM

I had gamefly for about 4 months.. turnaround time was never the problem, it was always unavailable games at the top of my queue getting overlooked. I figure I might as well buy games that I really like instead of playing a lot of mediocre ones because of their stock problems.

Neon Jebus @ Jun 11th 2008 9:07AM

I'm in Indiana and it takes 4 business days for them to show I've returned my game. If the next game is mailed out that day it will take 3 busines days for it to get here. 7 days for turn around is still a bit much. Even worse if most of the games in your 'Q' are medium availability or worse. Then your looking at 10 day turn around.

I have a three game plan so it isn't too bad.

Also the 'Fast Return' option seems to happen about once out of every 12 - 15 returns I have to them. That just sucks...

The Aggie CEO @ Jun 11th 2008 9:23AM

They need to do like Netflix and open one in Greensboro, NC........then I can get my games in a day........lol

NOT ME @ Jun 11th 2008 9:29AM

yea that not having the games available is a deal breaker. and why are they taking so long to open up new shipping plants. they been around for years now and they only recently opened this one and the one in PA

valdemiro @ Jun 11th 2008 9:57AM

I agree that not getting the hottest games is a bummer but if you own multiple systems it's a life saver. My 360 achievement points are in debt to Gamefly, and when I need a cooldown I just rent a wii game I would have never bought. For me it works out great since I always buy the "Must Have" titles.

Doc @ Jun 11th 2008 10:06AM

This is a good thing IMO and has kept me from canceling my service. I was getting tired of waiting for over a week for a game, now it's much faster and plus I get a game shipped and to my house in 2 days!! Good job gamefly keep it up!

kagai @ Jun 11th 2008 10:21AM

Netflix, why won't you buy these guys up?!?

Baxter @ Jun 11th 2008 10:32AM

Awesome news. I don't ever wait more than a couple/three days for games as it is so this rocks. More distribution centers equal more games! Sweet!

I'm not feeling the game availability issues at all. Sure, in the early days things were slow and game availability was less than stellar but now things are rockin. Gamefly shipped GTA4 to me the day it got released... same with Bioshock.

It does help to have your queue managed well though so maybe that's why people are having a hard time getting what they want. I keep my queue maxed at 5 or 6 games and I don't put a bunch of filler in there. Only the top games on my list. I save the fluff for in between big titles releasing. If you get in there an tweak your queue often you're pretty much guaranteed to get the stuff you want. Just keep it filled with games you really want.

Fast Return only works as well as the post office you're using, meaning, if your dropping your games into a mailbox that's being processed through a post office that doesn't use it you're outta luck. Experiment with different mailboxes and see what happens. You'll know when you hit the mailbox jackpot.

Dirty @ Jun 11th 2008 11:39AM

They didnt ship MGS to me, and it now has a low availability. Lame. They have done this to me before. Seems to happen when they open up a new shipping center. I know that they will release a better version of MGS at a later date with more included, so I dont want to buy it. ARRGGG.

Dirty @ Jun 11th 2008 12:41PM

I take that back. MGS Shipped, I love you Gamefly.

Omar G. @ Jun 11th 2008 12:37PM

You can see a video of the facility here:
http://www.austin360.com/digitalsavant

dave @ Jun 11th 2008 12:35PM

I canceled my gamefly subscription after two months. Their game availability was horrendous. I did a test by putting all of my low and medium availability games on the top of my list. Guess which game i got? My 9th title, "Heavenly Sword", which had a high availability and was out since the fall.

Baxter @ Jun 11th 2008 1:15PM

They have totally stepped it up. They are on it these days. I just checked my queue and yep, there it is, MGS4 on its way... Hell yeah!

TruHuman @ Jun 11th 2008 2:19PM

You gotta manage the Q. If a game has low availability they probably don't have it in stock because there are a lot of other people that want it too. It goes down the list until a game they do have pops up and they send that so at least you get a game. If you want the low availability/high demand games, then just leave those on your Q and nothing else. You may have to wait an extra day or two but it usually works out.