Confessions of a Video Store Clerk: Why Renting Video Games is Such a Painful Process

by Erin Monaghan, Reviewer

It always seemed that Blockbuster and Hollywood Video added game sections to their stores for the same reason grocery stores place candy at the checkout aisle, to trigger children into a fit of the “I WANTS” and force parents into an impulse buy wanting to shut-up their whiny, crying kids.

Now, those whiny, crying kids are us; adults with expendable incomes willing to spend hundreds of dollars on high-powered, complex consoles and graphic rich games. We want realistic first person shooters that take us into wars, past and future, and RPG’s about becoming a mob boss or a hit for hire. No more 8-bit Nintendo for us. No sir.

And we have come to expect our local video stores to carry games on all the major platforms. The games have grown and matured, the audience has grown and matured; yet, it seems the rental stores have remained stagnate, (with the exception of their ever inflating prices.) Sure they still carry games on the newest consoles, but they’ve never really maximized their gaming potential.

Sadly, the real reason the rental store chains never took the gaming ball and ran simply comes down to cost. See, video stores technically buy their DVDs and games from the studios. They own the license and have permission from the studio to rent the merchandise. This is why they can eventually sell previously viewed DVDs and games. Unfortunately, renting video games just isn’t cost effective.

This is why games can be as high as $8 or $9 to rent. With the exception of the really popular games like Halo and its sequels, it’s likely that the video store company will never make its money back on a game before it is damaged or stolen. And rarely will the company replace the game in the event that it is removed from inventory due to damage or theft.

This also accounts for why the rental process is more difficult than breaking into a bank security vault. Both Blockbuster and Hollywood Video require you to have a credit card on file to rent any video game. And most, if not all, games are located behind the counter under lock and key.

So, perhaps this begs the question, why do the video chains bother renting games at all?

Because their customers have come to expect the games to be in the store, and until a more viable alternative comes along,