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[Korso]

I can't speak for everyone but for me as a kid renting a game was the only way I could play many games. Funds were limited to birthday and Christmas purchases. As I grew so did my wallet, as did my appreciation for ownership.

To be clear, I am not apposed to subscriptions necessarily, it's just not for me. There is also an argument to be made for the quality of games going down as a result. But, time will tell that story.

 

[yansolo]

i could take games i rented to a mates house to play and vice versa, today that doesnt exist
i understand the value of subscriptions but ill never support it, either way i feel eventually everything will be subscription based and ill never really own anything, its inevitable in my opinion

 

[RickMasters]

We do love subs. some people just want to fight a crusade. leave em to it. They just need a cause in life. something to fight about.

 

[Skelterz]

Going to rent a game felt like an event, it was often done with friends or when you were much younger with parents. It's the tangible aspects of these things we miss the idea of renting a movie or game now fills you with nostalgia because it meant more because you had to make more effort.

 

[Rendered Tangent]

I think the OP has a point.

I used to rent MegaDrive and SNES games from my local video shop and it was a great way to play those games I loved without needing the full price retail copy.

I suppose the issue is Game Pass etc...ending up as the ONLY option, whereas we always had the choice back then to buy the games if we could afford it.

The end game of a subscription service like GP is no physical copies anymore.

That's the difference.

One, was a good way to try new stuff and was affordable but never stopped you owning the physical game - the other is all of that but without the cartridge/disc and if we ever see a situation where big publishers go out of business (I know, seems unlikely at the moment) then what happens to our games?

 

[systemr123]

This is simply not true. Examples?

Gamepass. Thread can be closed now.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

The games were way different and way better.

Experience was better and cheaper then.

 

[T_T]

Why would I rent games? Unless I wanted to play online, I pirated EVERYTHING. PS1 games, PS2 games, PC games, Nintendo games through emulators. The only games I bought were Call of Duty and Warcraft 3.
Now there is no need for any of that because through digital storefronts games are dirt cheap anyway.

 

[Frwrd]

Physical media preservation.

 

[SirTerry-T]

Games were shorter back then. You could pick what you wanted to play.

Tell that to 9yr old me who cost my parents a small fortune because I insisted on finishing Raiders Of The Lost Ark on my Atari VCS before it was returned

 

[Lokaum D+]

i love games subs, its spare me a lot o money with mediocre titles, now i can try everything and buy just the good shit.

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

This is simply not true. Examples?

Rental and subs are different. Rentals lead to certain games bringing in money and thus developers being rewarded by customer choice indirectly. While bad rentals die. Subs don't allow a customer to decide where his subscription money get spent, and who gets paid. So in a Sub the customer loses the power to control which developers become successful. In a Sub the one running the subscription, decide who gets the payout.

This is why in Netflix, popular TV shows get killed after two seasons. Because there is no way for fans of the show to financially support that shows they like DIRECTLY, because their Sub ended up being used on what ever the management of the service deemed what THEY think is worth funding.

Basically there is a disconnect between customer satisfaction, and financial reward of content creators. The Subscription manager gate-keeps and play favorites on who lives or dies and customers have no say in it.

You end up with Suits deciding what people want, and you get crap. You kill the feedback between good content and happy customers.

 

[Sushi_Combo]

Going to the video store to rent games and movies was a fun time for me.

 

[magnumpy]

I loved a lot of stupid pointless crap as a child (Might Morphin Power Rangers...)

I'd like to think my tastes have evolved since then

 

[Bojanglez]

I didn't really like rentals as kids, it was expensive to actually play through a decent game. Now with subs I can blast through a few games in a month for £10 and then just unsub. Smart people will just play games on rotation by publisher, have an Xbox month, then a Ubisoft month, then an EA month etc. and play all the games they want over the course of a year for a fraction of the price. Needless to say publishers will try and think of ways to prevent that from happening (turning all games into GaaS).

 

[Rockman33]

Rental and subs are different. Rentals lead to certain games bringing in money and thus developers being rewarded by customer choice indirectly. While bad rentals die. Subs don't allow a customer to decide where his subscription money get spent, and who gets paid. So in a Sub the customer loses the power to control which developers become successful. In a Sub the one running the subscription, decide who gets the payout.

This is why in Netflix, popular TV shows get killed after two seasons. Because there is no way for fans of the show to financially support that shows they like DIRECTLY, because their Sub ended up being used on what ever the management of the service deemed what THEY think is worth funding.

Basically there is a disconnect between customer satisfaction, and financial reward of content creators. The Subscription manager gate-keeps and play favorites on who lives or dies and customers have no say in it.

You end up with Suits deciding what people want, and you get crap. You kill the feedback between good content and happy customers.

Developers get no money from rentals. You think blockbuster sent out checks to every developer or studio whose games were rented? Same way the developer gets no money from resale of a used game.

 

[gtabro]

Was just reading this https://www.ign.com/articles/alan-wake-2s-seemingly-dire-sales-dont-paint-the-full-picture and more specifically

and remembered another (albeit smaller) reason for why I, personally, dislike digital platforms - and I'm speaking about my PC experience - apart from the obnoxious launchers* the fact you agree to different T&C, so different policies & your library gets disjointed just doesn't seem appealing to most people, it feels like filling your computer with shovelware just to launch every single one of the 3 games you play from a different digital platforms. Which is in contrast with renting a physical game - every time the experience is the same - you obtain them the same way, the games are in the same place at your house (for most people), it's just more streamlined and easier to use as a service IMO. And ease of use often = broader market which logically also equals larger acceptance.

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

Developers get no money from rentals. You think blockbuster sent out checks to every developer or studio whose games were rented? Same way the developer gets no money from resale of a used game.

The popular games were sold with the rental rights the same way VCR tapes are. The more popular the game the more sales to rental stores as they are discrete units. That's the difference between infinite digital software and physical game cartridges. If a cartridge is rented out they can't rent to another person at the same time without buying another cartridge.

The right to rent out comes with the sale. That's why VCR tapes are so expensive, they have rental rights attached.

 

[th4tguy]

because subscription services lead to lower quality games

It's funny you say that because game devs back in the day specifically took design decisions that were anti renting.
Developers and publishers did not like rentals because they only got paid for the initial copy bought and nothing from the many many rentals.
Arcade games were the same way. Design choices to get as much out of the environment they knew the games were being played in.
Some would argue it made the games worse.

 

[InterMusketeer]

I didn't like renting games as a kid either. You either wasted a couple bucks on a crappy game or got a game you wanted to be able to play all the time. As a kid you just take whatever you can get, because it's not up to you.

It was nice to try games before committing to a purchase back then, but that's not really required anymore in this age of demos and online videos.

 

[socksfelloff]

For me it's the experience that went with renting a game. When the stars aligned and the game you wanted was in stock it was magical.