Sliceofmymind.com (SOMM) - The Opinion Habitat -Game Wars Review: Online Game Rentals | SOMM Reviews

(5 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

Written by Frank R

Article Index
Game Wars Review: Online Game Rentals
Rental Plans & Pricing
GottaPlay's Plan Features, Title Selection & Arrival Times
GameZnFlix's Plan Features, Title Selection & Arrival Time
GameMine's Plan Features, Title Selection & Arrival Time
GetYourGamez's Plan Features, Title Selection & Arrival Time
Website/Service Ease of Use & Customer Service
The Bottom Line
All Pages

There is something about coming home after a long day of diligent work to find something that relaxes you, waiting. Be that something a fresh pot of coffee and a cigar, 52' Plasma HDTV with HD Cable Service and Blu-Ray Player, writing a novel, snuggling with your better half and/or playing video games. Until about 2000, in order to rent video games, your only choices were brick and mortar rental stores like Blockbuster. Today, you have the likes of GameFly, GottaPlay, GameZnFlix, Gamerang, GameMine and GetYourGamez. Each company, old or new, is fighting for your hard earned money and I'm going to help you find one of the hidden gems within the mountain known as the Internet. (Editor's Note: Since the time this review went live (Nov, 08), GetYourGamez and GameZnFlix have gone out of business. The review will be updated soon, including price changes and more.)

There are many places online where you could buy pre-owned or even new games at low prices. While many gamers check websites like eBay.com, Amazon.com and others for games, a few wise gamers know that some rental companies allow you to purchase pre-owned games for prices even lower than those on eBay.com. If you are a fickle gamer that likes to try before you buy, online game rental websites could save you tons of cash, especially if the game you wanted turns out to be a dud. Most online game rental companies are learning to adapt to gamers, offering them many options and services. If you were reluctant to go online before for your rental needs, now is the best time. In this round of online game rental companies, I chose GottaPlay, GameZnFlix, GameMine and GetYourGamez. I didn't choose GameFly or Gamerang since I have previous experience with these online game rental services and I will review them sometime later in the future. I am breaking down each company in three segments so you can find a segment that is more important to you than the rest. So, let's start.

Rental Plans & Pricing

Each company rental plans have unlimited game rentals, free shipping both ways and no late fees.

GottaPlay:

GottaPlay offers three rental plans, for one to three games ‘out at a time’ (OaaT). For one game, it is $12.95 per month and for two games it is $20.95 per month. The rental plan for 3 games out at a time costs $28.95 each month, but you have to pre-pay in 3 month increments. GottaPlay does offer a 10 day Trial for the 1 or 2 games out rental plans, but given the results of how long it takes for any game to be shipped to you, you can’t really call it a trial (more on this later). I chose the Two Games OaaT plan for $20.95 for this review.

GottaPlay’s Plans & Pricing Quick Glance

1 Rental OaaT: $12.95 Monthly
2 Rental OaaT: $20.95 Monthly
3 Rental OaaT: $28.95, pre-paid every three months
10 Day Free Trial Offer

GameZnFlix:

GameZnFlix offers three rental plans. Not only can you rent video games, but movies/videos on DVD, HD-DVD (not sure if that is a good thing) and Blu-Ray. GameZnFlix is the cheapest out of all the companies I chose for this review, however, as the saying goes “you get what you pay for”. For one rental OaaT it will only cost you $8.99 each month, 2 rentals is $12.99 and 3 rentals is $16.99 each month. I chose the 3 Games/Movies OaaT plan for this review.

GameZnFlix’s Plans & Pricing Quick Glance

1 Rental OaaT: $8.99 Monthly
2 Rental OaaT: $12.99 Monthly
3 Rental OaaT: $16.99 Monthly
14 Day Free Trial Offer

GameMine:

GameMine offers three rental plans, each featuring three pre-payment options for a total of nine “different” plans. For the one game rental plan, you pay $12.95 a month, two games for $18.95 a month and three games for $26.95 a month. Instead of offering the gimmicky trial offer that most online rental companies do, they give you your second month’s service for free. This sounds great but it could be that it takes them so long to actually ship your first games, (they use USPS Delivery Confirmation – do they get a lot of people claiming they lost their games in transit?) may be they give you the second month so you could actually play the games. I chose the 3 Games OaaT plan for this review.

GameMine’s Plans & Pricing Quick Glance

1 Rental OaaT: $14.95 Monthly, $83.70 for 6 Months prepaid (at $12.95 per month) or $143.40 for 12 months prepaid (at $11.95 per month)
2 Rental OaaT: $20.95 Monthly, $113.70 for 6 Months prepaid (at $18.95 per month) or $215.40 for 12 months prepaid (at $17.95 per month)
3 Rental OaaT: $28.95 Monthly, $161.70 for 6 Months prepaid (at $26.95 per month) or $305.40 for 12 months prepaid (at $25.45 per month)
2nd Month Free with new membership

GetYourGamez:

GetYourGamez has the simplest plans out of all the companies in this review (whether that is good or bad is yet to be determined). They offer two game rental plans; one game out is $14.99 per month and two games out is $19.99 per month. I chose the 2 Games OaaT plan for this review.

GetYourGamez's Plans & Pricing Quick Glance

1 Rental OaaT: $14.99 Monthly
2 Rental OaaT: $19.99 Monthly

Rental Plan Features, Rental Title Selections, & Rental Arrival Times

Each company ships via USPS First Class with the Return Mailer prepaid with First Class shipping.

I tried to pick out of a pool of 12 games from all the websites (if available), which are Armored Core 4, BioShock, Burnout Paradise, Super Smash Bros: Brawl, Resistance: Fall of Man, Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09, Ace Combat 6, SoulCalibur 4, Assassin’s Creed, Too Human and Metal Gear Solid 4.

GottaPlay:

GottaPlay has a great selection of video game titles for rent. They have games from all of the current generation consoles like Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and Playstation 3 as well as last gen like Xbox, PS2 and Gamecube. You can even rent handheld games for the Sony PSP, Nintendo DS and Nintendo GBA. GottaPlay has almost all of the new game releases and their coming soon section shows more to come. The bad news, almost every game except for 1st year releases of the current generation of consoles, has a Short to Long Wait status. Out of the seven games I added to the GameBox (games in my queue), only Armored Core 4 (which was 6^th in my queue) and BioShock (3^rd in my queue) were shipped eight days after I signed up for GottaPlay. I received the games 3 days after they were shipped. No wonder GottaPlay states on their website that you should add 15 games in your Gamebox because you probably won’t get the games you really want in a desirable timeframe. I am not sure if GottaPlay is amazingly popular and that is the reason for your chance’s luck at getting anything good or they simply aren’t replete enough to satisfy gamers’ appetites.

GottaPlay sets itself a part by allowing customers to buy games they rent AND trade games they already have in for new ones. They use a point system called Gamepoints (original isn’t it?) and each game you trade varies in Gamepoints. I am not totally sure about the system though, I have not used it and I don’t plan to. Some newer games you would think would be worth a lot of points like GTA IV (at the time of this writing this review, is worth 25 to 35 GamePoints) aren’t, while some games you could get for dirt cheap like DeadRising (worth 39 to 46 GamePoints) are worth a lot. Worth noting is that most games you may want to trade for have a Long Wait status attached to them, so I’m not sure if it is worth your time to trade in that bad purchase of The Guy Game (you know you got it) in for GamePoints.

Pros:

What seems to be like a great selection of video game titles; most of the new releases on all systems.
Unique GamePoints game trading system; instead of trading your older games into GameStop for little store credit, trade them at GottaPlay for loads of GamePoints!
When the games are actually available and are shipped, you get them fast!
The only company out of the bunch (in this review) to carry Nintendo Gameboy Advance titles; good if you or your children have GBA’s.

Cons:

You’ll have to wait a while to try any of those great games. Most titles have waiting periods that range from short (I’m debating if a short waiting time really means short) to long and that is simply unacceptable when you get charged monthly and only get to try two games a month.
GamePoints trading system doesn’t tell you what it factors in to justify its point values of games. I doubt that Deadrising is in higher demand than GTA IV.
Ten Day Trial is a joke, plain and simple; chances are you won’t get a game during those ten days.

Total Rental Arrival Time: 11 Days (8 Days to Ship; Arrived 3 Days after)

Rental Plan Features, Rental Title Selections, & Rental Arrival Times

Each company ships via USPS First Class with the Return Mailer prepaid with First Class shipping.

GameZnFlix:

GameZnFlix’s rental catalog is piss poor and that’s the nice way of putting it. Yes, you are able to rent video games and movies but when you have such a limited selection to choose from, what’s the point? When you have Operation: Darkness in your Coming Soon section and it has been out for a few months, you know you have problems. Almost all of the video game titles available through GameZnFlix for the current generation systems are from 2006, 2007 and early 2008. The only game I know was newly released is Mercenaries 2: World in Flames and that has a Long Wait attached. Since my choices for games were extremely limited, I had to choose Prey, Viva Piñata and Assassin’s Creed. It took six days for GameZnFlix to ship these games out and another four days for the games to arrive at my house.

The movie titles from GameZnFlix aren’t much better than the selection of games but if you are dying to try out the Playstation 3’s Blu-Ray capabilities without spending $30 or more for a movie, or subscribing to Netflix, I guess it is an added “value”. I would just recommend using Netflix like I do; you get a better selection of Blu-Ray and DVDs there.

Pros:

Hmm, you can rent video games and movies…I think.
Hey, you with the PS1, you can rent a very modest amount of PS1 games here. No, the selection of PS1 games is crappy just like for all of the other consoles but no other company still rents out PS1 games.
This company survived this long offering such limited services.
The cheapest membership plans out of all the companies in this review, but you get what you pay for in terms of title selection.

Cons:

Extremely limited selection of video games and movies. Anything worth renting was limited in availability and I didn’t want to stick around to see when they would become available. If you are interested in getting video games and movies, rent games ANYWHERE else and do yourself a favor and try Netflix.
Long wait time to get any game shipped. You would think Prey wouldn’t take long to ship out, think again.
I actually spent my hard earned money on this company’s rental services. Next time I’ll just pay someone to hit me with a parked car.

Total Rental Arrival Time: 10 Days (6 Days to ship; Arrived 4 days after)

Rental Plan Features, Rental Title Selections, & Rental Arrival Times

Each company ships via USPS First Class with the Return Mailer prepaid with First Class shipping.

GameMine:

GameMine offers a copious selection of titles and most of them are available for immediate rental. I see a lot of newly released titles like Madden NFL 09, Mercenaries 2 and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. The interface of the website really nagged me; however, we will get to that later. Every game I wanted to rent, I got. It did take GameMine a nice size time frame to get those games to me, a full 14 days. I guess that is why they don’t offer a trial. The games arrived in a box, shipped by USPS First Class with Delivery Confirmation. I am not sure if they distrust their customers or want to protect us and themselves, probably a little of both. What I didn’t like it that inside of that box only contained two return mailers, one filled with two games. Since I got three games and only two return mailers, I will have to ship one game back with my own money and packaging. I hope GameMine made a mistake and I am an exception to how they do business; they claim free shipping both ways.

GameMine has an innovative feature, at first glance, called 2X Speed for loyal customers with memberships older than 90 days. When you send notice to GameMine that you are shipping a game back, they will ship out the next game in your Mine List (your queue) before receiving the game you shipped back to them. It would be a novel concept if it weren’t for another company doing this exact thing on day one of your membership with them. Still, if you are loyal to GameMine, they show signs they will be loyal to you.

One thing GameMine offers than any other of the companies in this review is Sony PSP movies. I thought the UMD format died but apparently it hasn’t and GameMine has a decent selection of movies for the PSP. I would think it is possible to just buy the movies cheaply at a local retail store or on eBay but it is nice to know they have them for rent.

Pros:

Great selection of video game titles available for rent; Xbox 360, PS3 and Nintendo Wii as well as last generation consoles and handhelds.
You get your second month of service for free; way better than a gimmicky 10 to 14 day trial that most companies use.
Offers PSP UMD movies for rent; although I thought the format was dead.
2X Speed is a novel concept that should keep loyal customers coming back for more.

Cons:

GameMine’s website interface needs more work. It was designed in 2004 (if the copyright notice is any indication) and looks the part.
Shipping my three games to me in a box with only two return mailers; they claim free shipping both ways but I will have to pay for packaging and shipping fees for one of these games.
It took GameMine a full two weeks (14 days) to get my games from my queue to my mailbox. In this cutthroat business, that is very unacceptable.
GameMine’s website Login area displays the full username and password characters as you type them in. That’s a huge privacy issue in the making, especially if you are a road warrior like me and you use your notebook in public areas.
No public telephone number to call if you have any questions and/or problems. That’s a big no, no when you deal with personal information.

Total Rental Arrival Time: 14 Days (8 Days to ship; Arrived 6 days after)

Rental Plan Features, Rental Title Selections, & Rental Arrival Times

Each company ships via USPS First Class with the Return Mailer prepaid with First Class shipping.

GetYourGamez:

GetYourGamez was launched in June of 2007 and it is a charming little website. They rent out an extensive library of the newest titles for your Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii, Xbox, PS2 and GameCube. Almost all of the games are available for rent with little to no wait time, how about that? If you are looking to rent titles for your Nintendo DS, you will have to look elsewhere, because GetYourGamez doesn’t have them. They only have Sony PSP titles in additional to the aforementioned consoles.

GetYourGamez surprised me. Out of all the companies, I thought they would be the low-rent company, the bottom crawler. This is one nascent company to watch. The games in my queue were shipped out within 24 hours of me signing up for membership and arrived at my door within four days. I believe they would have gotten here sooner if it weren’t for the weekend. The games were Burnout Paradise and SoulCalibur 4 (SoulCalibur 4 had a long wait status on all the other rental companies websites). I did have a problem with Burnout Paradise, it didn’t work (the disk had long circular scratches) but once I notified their customer service, they shipped out a new copy in two days and I received the new game in only two days! It was still an inconvenience though, I hope GetYourGamez staff test their games to ensure they work before shipping them out to members. I can’t say it is a novice mistake though, many of the online rental companies suffer from this ailment but for a smaller company, GetYourGamez should be able to fix mistakes like this.

What you get with GetYourGamez is straightforward, pure vanilla game rental service. They do offer the same feature that GameMine offers in 2X Speed on day one of your membership, but they don’t really note that on their website. I would advise that the owner of GetYourGamez add that to their service feature list, because it is a helpful option that gets games to gamers quickly without the waiting period of the company receiving their games back.

Pros:

Awesome selection of the new releases for all consoles and most are available with no waiting period.
Extremely quick turnaround for games being shipped from GetYourGamez to your home. I receive the games from my queue in only 5 days; probably sooner if it weren’t for the weekend.
Helpful customer service; got my replacement game in only four days with no hassle from GetYourGamez staff.
Even quicker Return game turnaround; let GetYourGamez know you are shipping a game back to them and they will immediately ship a new game out of your queue.

Cons:

They sent a game that didn’t work; GetYourGamez needs to test their games or test them more thoroughly.
If you own a Nintendo DS and you want to rent games for it, you have to look to another rental company for your rental needs.
Another company with no public telephone number to call if you have any questions and/or problems.

Total Rental Arrival Time: 5 Days (1 Day to Ship; Arrived 4 Days after)

Website/Service Ease of Use and Customer Service

All of the rental companies in this review require a credit, check or debit card to rent games from them. A great rental company should allow a potential customer to view their entire game catalog without having to sign up first.

GottaPlay:

GottaPlay’s website is easy on the eyes and navigation is a snap. Signing up for membership only took a few minutes and I was able to start adding games to my GameBox right after. GottaPlay features a fairly detailed Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) area if you have any simple questions you would like answered. What’s really cool, if you like 1up.com (gaming mag, EGM’s online website), GottaPlay has a partnership with 1up.com to show up to date game rating scores and reviews. If you distrust the professionals, you could get a basic rating from other GottaPlay members with GottaPlay’s rating system or by user reviews. You can also get news, videos, screenshots, and more, conveniently located on the website. Another thing that is noteworthy is the site’s search capability. You could search for games by UPC, title, game publisher and even genre, helpful if you don’t really remember a game’s name but you know who makes it or what game genre it is in.

If you really want, you could create a profile on GottaPlay that shows your trading rating, friends (called buddies) messages and alerts and more. What is strange is that GottaPlay has this cool profile system but doesn’t have a forum so you could discuss games, gaming gossip and other stuff with fellow GottaPlay members; matter of fact, none of the rental companies in this review have a forum for members…weird.

I had no need to contact customer support at GottaPlay, although I want to send them hate mail for not having enough of the new releases. GottaPlay does display their full corporate address and phone number. You could also contact them via email through a form located on the website.

GameZnFlix:

What GameZnFlix does get right is their site design and navigation. Creating a membership was straightforward; no convoluted signup here. If you choose to prepay for three months of service, you can get a $25 Shell gift card and the way gas prices are now anything extra is good. During signup, you could sign up for a free subscription of EGM which shows that GameZnFlix too has a partnership with 1up.com but its integration into their website isn’t as great as it is with GottaPlay.

Like GottaPlay, you can read and submit user reviews, ratings, view screenshots and even game hints on GameZnFlix’s website. Although, I suspect GameZnFlix’s lack of games and movies fills its member with an activity-halting torpor; most of the games user review areas are bare of any actual reviews by members.

If you have a question, GameZnFlix has a decent knowledgebase/FAQs section to help you. If you can’t find your question there, you could simply add one to the knowledgebase and one of the company’s support agents will answer it for you. I am tempted to ask “Why in the world did I sign up for your company’s service and is there any way I can get my money back?”

I only used GameZnFlix’s customer service once and that was to make sure once I closed my account, it stayed closed. I didn’t want to get charged again for their pitiful service. If you need to get in touch with GameZnFlix, you can use an email form on their website, contact them directly through your email client or call them.

GameMine:

GameMine’s minimalist website design barely gets the job done. Looking at it, at first glance, you would think it was created by some guy running the company out of a garage or a scam site. GameMine simply doesn’t look like it can securely display and store your personal information. I’m not showing any type of disparity because I’m a webmaster but many customers judge a website security on how well it looks and performs. As I stated previously, the login area near the site’s logo fully displays the characters of your username AND password. If you like use your notebook computer in public areas; I would not access this website in public. Even at home, you should be careful if you have tech savvy children who could easily capture your login information. I must add, sometimes you are browsing the website with SSL encryption and other times you’ll notice you’re browsing with no encryption whatsoever. With all of that said, I was able to sign up quickly and waste no time adding games to my queue.

The minimalist website design extents to the site’s navigation and previews of games. There is no user reviews, videos, or user ratings; only a brief description of the game along with some information on the game’s publisher and release date. There is a “You may also like…” feature that show games you may want to rent compared to the game you currently viewing.

If you have any problems with GameMine services and you need to get into immediate contact with them, you really only have one real choice, email. You could send them an email through your email client or a basic form on their website. Companies that deal with your personal information like credit cards should always have a number for you to call them, that’s just common business practice. If you have a simple question, you may still need to contact GameMine via email; their FAQs section is lackluster to say the least.

GetYourGamez:

GetYourGamez is best described as WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get). Following their simple yet efficient rental plans is a website that isn’t ornate with superfluous details. Signup was transient in scope, nothing impinging my progress to get quickly to adding games to my queue. Getting to the games I wanted to rent was as painless as signing up for membership. When you do find a game you want to rent, you get a brief description of the game, its ESRB rating and date of release. There is a star rating system that you could use at a glance to help you gauge how other users like a game you may be interested in.

Populated along the sides of the GetYourGamez website are helpful links and information boxes. You can view the Top 10 Rentals, current rentals in your possession, request a game and even refer a friend to get a free month of service. What I found really interesting is the GYG Blog, which hosts blog posts by GetYourGamez staff. You can read reviews and get other cool information about GYG and its staff. I wish they had a forum though, as the site would greatly benefit from one.

GetYourGamez customer service outshined almost all of my past experiences with other online rental companies support staff. Most companies in today’s business landscape forget about simple goodhearted customer service and candor, instead, relying on gimmicks. I’m not saying GetYourGamez has the best customer service support in the online rental arena, which is reserved for another company I have experience with, but given GetYourGamez’s size, its customer support is refreshing. May be it is the small company attitude, they have to outpace the bigger guys with better customer service, but not all smaller companies adhere to that rule. If you need to get in touch with GetYourGamez, you can send a message through their contact us form or send an email with your email client. Like GameMine, they don’t have a telephone number for customer service calls. There FAQs section covers the basic questions you may have but GetYourGamez is quick to answer your emails if you have a complex problem.

The Bottom Line

The online rental arena is only going to get bigger and thus more confusing for consumers looking for a rental service to meet their needs. The companies in this review are only a small piece of the puzzle that is the online rental industry. I tried my best to describe what may interest you in terms of service, price, features and customer service. I hope this review clarifies some of the confusion some people may have with online rental companies and their services. So what that said, let’s get to those gems I wrote about earlier.

Renting games online is about conveniences and one of those conveniences is being able to rent games from a full catalog of video game titles. This company may provide you with the ability to rent video games along with DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray movies as well, but when you have such a limited choice of both games and movies, that potential distinguishing feature is pointless.

GameZnFlix scores 1 & Half Brainies out of Five.

While you may get to choose from a large selection of titles with little to no backordered status from this company, its website interface shows signs of privacy issues that need to be fixed. Add in the fact that it took them a week for this company to ship me games from my queue and you have one disgruntled member. This company’s saving grace is the additional free month of service that sets them apart, but it makes you wonder why the company wastes its potential.

GameMine scores 3 Brainies out of Five.

This company has some awesome features that if developed more could propel it into an industry leader. Its website integration with 1up.com shows great promise and really enhances a member’s time on the website. If you want, you don’t even have to rent games, but trade in your old ones and get new games that way. Although they seem to offer an abundant of titles for all consoles and handhelds, most titles have short to long wait status that in a way limits what a member can rent or trade for. If they get a better supply of games, I see little stopping them.

GottaPlay scores 3 & Half Brainies out of Five.

It starts with great customer service and this company seems to realize that often untapped area. Their selection of titles rivals that of the big boys in online game rental even if they don’t carry Nintendo DS titles. They may not have all the features that the other guys do but plain and simple goes a long way. One mishap of sending a game that didn’t work cost them a Brainie, but this is still the game rental company to watch out for. Look out GameFly!

GetYourGamez scores 4 Brainies out of Five.

GetYourGamez also scores our coveted SOMM Editor’s Choice Award for outstanding service and customer service!

Conclusion

GetYourGamez is my top choice currently for renting games online. GottaPlay is a close second, they just need to get more games and they may take the top spot from GetYourGamez! GameMine is very close to GottaPlay, fix up your issues and you got it. Stay away from GameZnFlix at all costs, the low membership fee is a warning sign, you really get what you pay for which isn’t much at all.

Editor’s Note: None of the companies knew beforehand I was writing this review and only GetYourGamez knows at this time that they were awarded the SOMM’s Editor’s Choice.

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites

| More...

Tags: 360, Crappy Games, GBA, GameCube, GameMine, GamznFlix, GetYourGamez, GottaPlay Long Wait Status, GottaPlay Long Wait Status, Mario, Nintendo, PS3, Rent Games, Rent Video Games, Videogames, Wii, Xbox