Video Game Rentals

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

I watched a excellent video from Gaming Historian...

Spoiler

... and now I wonder how many of you rented video games in the past instead of buying? Maybe still do that, I mean - beyond digital distribution?

In Poland, I cannot remember ANY of video game rental stores, maybe there were some during the most expensive consoles era in late nineties (PSX) but thanks to rampant piracy there was no place for such kind of services in viable scale.

 

[Nathir]

Must be an american thing. I never rented a game from a store, only from friends.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Buying on Steam is renting.

 

[I'm Big Into Anal]

blockbuster and video ezy were everywhere in nz back in the day

they rented games from the ps1/xbox/ps2/360/ps3

not sure how they got around the copyright thing

 

[Mustawd]

... and now I wonder how many of you rented video games in the past instead of buying?

I only ever owned like 2 or 3 games. Rented the rest, which is why I never used to finish games. My dad and I would go to Blockbuster on a Friday night, rent the game, and have to return by Sunday evening. So that's really only like 2 days when you think about it.

but thanks to rampant piracy there was no place for such kind of services in viable scale.

Yah, the US didn't have the piracy scene from what I hear Euros had. Also, back when I first started renting it was for the SNES/Sega Genesis, so I don't think pirated cartridges even existed?

 

[mondblut]

Well, I used to purchase bootleg game CDs, copy them on CDRs then return to the stores to exchange for other CDs, does that count?

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Yah, the US didn't have the piracy scene from what I hear Euros had. Also, back when I first started renting it was for the SNES/Sega Genesis, so I don't think pirated cartridges even existed?

There were bootleg cartridges, but I think this kind of activity was largely suppressed in Japan, the United States, and other First World countries, so if you wanted to play a console game in the Atari, NES, or SNES eras you needed to purchase or rent it. The computer software industry, on the other hand, already had a serious piracy problem in the 1980s, due to the ease of copying "floppy" disks.

 

[ghostdog]

Back in the day sometimes me and a friend used to rent a PSX console and tried to finish games over the weekend. I remember we finished MGS, Tomb Raider, Silent Hill, Broken Sword and that Duke Nukem psx game.

 

[Swampy_Merkin]

Uhhh....you guys never heard of https://www.gamefly.com/?

Perfect for console-tards.