I've been holding off on venting my frustration for the last couple of months now, but I've finally had it with Gamefly, the self-touting "#1 online video game rental service." It's really a shame that they choose to run their business in such a shoddy manor, because with no real competition around (except for maybe Blockbuster) they could easily be as big as Netflix. Yet, time and time again they prove to be 100% deserving of a ride on the FAIL boat.

Having been a long time customer of Netflix, I've come accustomed to a huge selection, extremely fast turn around time, and hassle free issue handling. Naturally, when I decided to try out Gamefly six months ago I took for granted that I would be receiving the same level of service. Holy shit was I in for a surprise!

First off, let's compare the rental plans. I'm currently signed up for the three DVD plan with Netflix for $16.99 and the single game rental plan with Gamefly for $15.95. Understandably, games cost three times as much as a DVD, so the cost was one thing I wasn't too concerned about. The queue system also seemed to be the same, so I went down my list of wanted games, ranked them accordingly and ended up with about ten games queued with some exploratory fillers at the bottom. From there everything started to go downhill FAST.

The first game they shipped was not my first pick, or my second, or even my third, it was my FIFTH game in the queue. As soon as I received the notification I double checked the queue to make sure it wasn't ordered differently than I remembered. Nope, it was exactly as I thought. Ok, so what about availability? One game was listed as "Low", one was listed as "Medium", and the rest were "High". In fact, there were two games listed as highly available above the one that they sent. Huh?

Ok, so what about shipping time? Well that first game arrived on the third day after they sent me notification. Not horrible, but not great either... yet I guess I can live with it.

After a week I was ready to return it, so I threw it back in the mailbox and the game was on it's way, but here is where I started to really be suspicious of the level of service Gamefly claims to offer and what they actual provide. You see, Gamefly advertise their "FastReturn" service likes it's the second coming of Christ. The theory goes that when USPS receives your game it is scanned and Gamefly is instantly notified, so you don't have to wait for it to return to the distribution center. In this way they can send the next game out on your queue and reduce turn around time. Well frankly, THE SERVICE DOESN'T FUCKING WORK. Not once have I sent a game back and had any notification until the game actually shows up three days later at Gamefly. Even worse, when the game does show up there is sometimes a two or three day lag time before they send out the next game! WTF!?!

*Grumble*Grumble* Ok, so at this point I'm starting to get angry. Not only does Netflix instantly ship the second they get your return, but they still manage to ship things almost always in order from your queue regardless of availability, and when they can't they ship you an extra DVD from a different distribution center free of charge!

Now that my first game is returned, I'm going to receive one of the games that was skipped right? NOPE. Sorry buddy, you lose! Once again they ship the fifth game in my queue. I send that one back, and the next game? The fourth game in my queue! ARRRG!!!! I was so pissed I contacted their customer service group and inquired as to why the fuck their system is so screwed. Here's the response:

Thank you for your inquiry. We have reviewed your account and confirmed that your top choice was not available upon shipping, and thus we sent you the first available game in your GameQ to minimize the time you are without one. Please note the availability statuses on the Web site reflect inventory across all of our warehouses. Therefore, while the game may be "Available Now” or “High" according to your Q, it may only be available in the warehouse that is more distant from your residence.

So tell me, what is wrong with this paragraph? DON'T MARK GAMES AS AVAILABLE IF THEY ARE NOT. Is this seriously a hard concept to understand? Or, if you're going to show availability from all warehouses, FUCKING SHIP from all warehouses. You can't list inventory to be used that's not accessible... then it's not usable inventory! They continue with this lovely bit:

We understand that our members want both their first choice and rapid shipping. While we try to meet these expectations every time, exceptions occur when the top ranked item is not available.

Top ranked item? How about top FIVE? I wouldn't even care if it was my second or third, but what the hell is this, fifth and below listed as "High" is apparently more interesting as my third choice listed the same way. Finally, here is the clincher and when I finally ended my conversation with them:

If you would like to receive a specific title we recommend that you empty your queue in order to have a higher chance of receiving the specific game.

Well doesn't that just figure. In so many words I've just been told "Yeah, our queue is useless. Only pick one game at a time or you'll never get what you want." SUCK IT GAMEFLY. You seriously need to take some queue pointers from Netflix and revise your algorithm.
So back to the price for play that you actually get out of your subscription. Unlike Netflix where even with a three DVD plan I can end up watching 20 movies in a month with their quick turn around (totally justifying the price in my opinion), you end up wasting so much time with Gamefly that the cost is ridiculous. Let's say there are thirty days in a month and I only keep the games a week, with the current turn around time of three days out, two to three days at the warehouse, and three days back, I can only play two games a month. That's also assuming that the games I get are actually the ones I want! AND to make it worse, that's also assuming the games are available!!!! You're getting screwed and might as well pay five bucks at your local Blockbuster to rent them.

So what finally brought me to this rant? Well it's the whole "availability" issue that I touched on. You see, as of May I played through most of the games that were already out and I was interested in. So, two weeks ago I queued up three upcoming PS3 games that were supposed to be decent and sent back my current game. Since then, inFamous, Prototype, and Ghostbusters have all been release, and which one did I receive. NOT ONE. All three gradually came out, started as "High", eventually ended up as "Low", and now two weeks later I still haven't received a single game! WHAT AM I PAYING FOR!? I didn't expect to receive all three right away, but I would have thought that by having all three on their I would be getting at least one freaking game. But no, nothing, and each time I look at the damn queue I get the annoying little message that I have no titles out so I should add more items to my queue! How about FUCK YOU Gamefly and send me one of the three already listed! Douchebags.

As soon as the games do eventually get here I'm cancelling my account and going back to local rentals. This service has been nothing but a pain in the ass from day one, let alone even attempting to get a new game to play. I feel like I'm luck too compared to some of the other stories I've read. A quick Google of "Gamefly sucks" will bring you all kinds of great stories about missing deliveries, ghost shipments, and people getting charged for returning games that mysteriously show up empty at the warehouse... not to mention all the same problems I just listed. Somehow I think that most of the employees have a warehouse of "missing games" at their homes.

Gamefly sucks, and I predict a swift death in the future. Apparently they've been expanding but every person I talk to says their service has actually been getting worse, so good luck with that! In my opinion, just cancel now and make it quicker.