I finally decided it was time to pull the plug on my Gamefly subscription.  As much as I like the idea of the service (Netflix for games), it just wasn’t living up to my expectations.  I used to be a huge proponent of the service and even recommended it to a number of friends.  As time went on, I became more and more disappointed until I finally decided to give up on my Gamefly experiment.

As a member, I was paying $23/mo for 2-at-a-time.  It’s obviously a bit pricey to begin with but the ability to acquire and test out any number of games helped justify it.  Unfortunately, that benefit really doesn’t outweigh the issues.  My primary complaint for the service is the extremely slow turnaround time.  As a Netflix subscriber, I’m certainly spoiled by the “mail on Monday, get next movie on Wed” quick turnaround they offer.  Netflix has a deal w/ USPS to help speed up by scanning in movies at the postal facility so they can immediately ship a movie to you, even before they physically receive it.  Gamefly, on the other hand, seems to request the USPS to ship the games as slow as possible.  The two day Netflix turnaround really impresses compared to the 7-day minimum (often longer) for Gamefly.  That’s roughly a quarter of the month that I’m paying for the service with nothing to show for it.

Another sticking point was the failure to provide the games I wanted.  Like Netflix, I happily created a queue of titles I would like to receive, in the order that I would like to receive them.  Just like Netflix, I realize I’m not going to always get the titles at the top of my queue immediately.  However, unlike Netflix, Gamefly consistently refused to send any titles at the very top of my queue.

I really enjoyed the concept of the service.  I got to play numerous games that I wouldn’t have otherwise.  I found it to be a nice compromise solution between my frugality and my desire to try many different games.  I’ve certainly saved some money by not buying games I might otherwise have.  Games such as Shadowrun that were going to be quickly abandoned by my friends, single player games like Assassins Creed and Bioshock that, while awesome, wouldn’t have any replayability, and massively hyped games like GTA4, Mass Effect, and Devil May Cry 4 that ended up being underwhelming.  I got to try a number of Wii games that I probably wouldn’t have tried before such as Resident Evil (excellent), Zak and Wiki (interesting), and BoomBlox (phenomenal and now on my to-buy list).

Yet, I still found myself frustrated with the service and feeling I was overpaying for them to under deliver.  If they open up a shipping facility in Virginia or start providing the same quick turnaround as Netflix, I might re-up my subscription.