Gamefly: The Best Thing To Happen To Video Games!

Gamefly. Video Game Rental. Online Video Game Rental. Massively Multiplayer Online Video Games. Video Games have come a long way since I first started playing them way back when. These terms were not even mentioned back in those days. Let me take you back in the days...

The First Time

I remember seeing the video game "Pong" way back in...I don't even remember what year it was, but I know I fell in love. I thought it was the most amazing thing i had ever seen. We, meaning my brothers and cousins, played for a couple of minutes and then we went back outside. Back then video games didn't have the appeal that getting out of the house did! We would play once in a while and by once in a while I mean, maybe once a week. It was incredible to look at, but it just didn' t take the place of going outside to play!

A couple of years later, my cousins had a video game system called the Magnavox Odyssey. Man, that thing was the best! I remember those summer's trying to play to see who could get the highest score. (That was when the highest score concept was first introduced to me.) Now for all of you Playstation3 new generation geeks, we didn't have the graphics that you had today. But, the games were a lot more fun! It was nothing spectacular, but you could make out everything on the screen, and that was good enough for us! We didn't worry about how much memory, the graphics, how many bits, whether the thing was online compatible, (I don't think the internet was invented yet!) or how big the hard drive was! We just played, and we played AFTER we finished playing outside! The video game had not become a national obsession just yet!

A couple of years, my mother finally blessed my family with a video game system. That system was called, "Vectrex"! It came with its own mini television screen and two joysticks! Amazing! This was the first system that I owned and I took it everywhere! That was when the video game became my obsession. That was when I knew that video games were here to stay! Unfortunately, some other people had that same thought and consequently STOLE my system! Vectrex was gone, it was nowhere to be found! I don't want to go into it! Too painful!

Too offset my loss of Vectrex, one of my closest cousins was given the Colecovision video game system for Christmas and the love was reborn! Colecovision had one game that stood out in my memory! That game was called ZAXXON! Zaxxon was one of the first games that i could remember that had the "advanced graphics " of the day! You could clearly see every obstacle on the screen. At the same time a little company called Atari was launched and the first console wars began!

It was Atari 2600 versus every other system out there! The Atari 2600 did not have the best graphics, the best system setup or the most powerful machine, but for some reason, it won this so-called "Console War". All the other systems folded and the Atari 2600 was the undisputed king! All this and one of the most important buttons in video games had not been invented yet! What button was that ? Read on!

I remember it like it was yesterday! i was still in the 6th grade and Atatri was unveiling their new video game system on a commercial. I was looking like every other kid in the 80's and in the commercial some kid was playing Pac-man on the screen. I'm thinking, "It looks just like the arcade, cool." And then the kid got up and hit the PAUSE button! I was like, "WHOOOA!!! now thats cool!": The pause button, one of the most overlooked button in video game history! We didn't realize how much we needed it until we got it! You kids nowadays take this button for granted, but back then it was either play the game or turn it off! Point blank!

Years went by and I moved on to computer games. I played video games on the TRS-80, the Apple 1 and 2! This was before windows was invented! I graduated from high school and played more and more video games. Watching the video game system evolve from a national past-time to America's obsession! Video games were everywhere! Arcades in the mall!  Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Joust, Centipede! You could find all of these games at the corner store! So if you wanted to play them, you had to go to either the arcade or the corner store!

But then the video game companies got a bright idea which resulted in the near-death of the arcade! "Instead of making games for the arcade, lets make the game from the arcade for the videogame systems for people to play at home!" Almost every house you went to had a video game system, and that was when you started to hear terms like," graphics and memory cards."

The Beginning Of Renting Video Games...

I bought my first video game system and it was the Playstation 1. It cost me close to 500 dollars and I only had one game! Resident Evil was that game! I played for about 6 hours straight and I couldn't believe it! But weeks later after I beat the game I found out that a local video rental store was letting people rent video games!

I thought this was a good idea because i wasn't playing the games anymore and I might as well get something for them! That was until i saw the price that the store was going to give me for the game! It was a rip-off! They were buying games from video gamers for small amounts like 4 or 5 dollars for classic games like "Metroid" or "the Legend Of Zelda" and reselling them for two or three times that amount! That was highway robbery! I was trying to find a better way to play all of my favorite video games and keep money in my pocket and I decided to try renting my games!

That didn't work because I kept getting hit with the late fees! No one likes late fees! So what I forgot to return the game when they wanted me to turn them in, I wasn't finish with the game just yet! That was years ago and i think that I still owe that movie rental place 20 bucks! The years went by and I watched the video game industry move to the forefront of American entertainment. The video game industry grew with the internet age and phrases like "graphics" were still being used but memory cards were replaced by "hard drives."

With the newfound power and accessories came new prices and every new video game now cost 60 and 70 dollars! Now this might not seem like a lot of money to some of you out there, but to the working man on a budget this was hard work! Balancing your love for video games with monthly bills and your mortgage is not an easy thing to do!

Along came Gamefly! Allowing you to rent games as soon as they come out without breaking your pockets! All of this for a measely $22.95 a month and no late fees! Video games delivered straight to my door and no late fees! Did i mention no late fees! You can hold on to the game until you beat it and send it back when YOU are done with it!

This was perfect for a hard working, bill juggling, video gamer like myself because it was a dream come true. After years of falling inlove with video games and sometimes not being able to afford them, I was finally able to get every new game that was out just like everyone else. And finally it felt good!

I am speaking from the perspective of an actual Gamefly member! I have the service and am very satisfied with it! And you will too! Not only do you get to rent whatever game that you are interested in, you also will be given a chance to own that same game at a reduced price if you decide to buy it! How;s that for service! Not only are you saving money by renting the game, you are saving money on the back-end by buying the game later... at a reduced price! Do yourself a favor and check out Gamefly! You won't regret it and you will see why they are the leader in online video game rentals!