The Reason Netflix is Staying Out of the Game Business?

Could this complaint by Davis Freeberg be the reason Netflix is staying out of the game business?

Comments

[Kyle]

It would be nice if Netflix did start shipping games. I've used GameFly 2 or 3 times and always cancel because I never get what I want. Shipping from CA to NH takes almost a week, so it doesn't pay out in the end.

[Howard]

Games cost much more than DVD's. I've had similar problems with Gamefly title availability in the past.

They do however now have four distribution centers now, LA, Pittsburgh, Tampa, and Austin TX.

[JDoors]

No one's ever had that complaint about movies? Ha!

Games would just be a mess; expensive, stocking issues, damaged disks, etc. One guess who'd wind up subsidising the extra expense?

[Benjamin]

It does make sense. Most people tend to hold on to games much longer than they do a movie. I'd say it takes an average of two hours to watch a movie, but playing a video game can take several times longer than that (and of course only the most dedicated will play a game through in one sitting). It's not very surprising that availability is a problem (unless of course GameFly wants to shell out lots of $$$ for lots of copies of games).

[Kevin]

Whoa, that's really weird: just 4 hours ago, I tweeted this:

"I joined gamefly, and I swear the first two games they're sending me are the ones I put at like #13 and #18 in my game queue. WTF aargh."

I couldn't believe this. I'm seriously wondering if I'm _ever_ going to see any of the games that were the reason why I signed up (Ghostbusters, Assassin's Creed, CoD4 etc.)

[Redshirt]

Well I've been a member for 2 weeks and sent my first two back on the 15th They didn't check them in til the 20th even though USPS says it takes 2 days to my shipping center. As of today 4 days later they still haven't sent out ANY new games.
I think this is going to be my first and last month.

[Jay]

I've had gamefly for a few years and I'm used to not getting games at the top of my queue. Sometimes I've been lucky enough to get a game the day it came out, but that is rare. I've however, also got games (old games) as brand new long after their release date. So the DO buy new games, but they're going to be limited to which ones are readily available from their suppliers. It seems like the used game biz is lucrative (GameStop) so I don't see what their problem is with buying 1000s of copies of a big game and shelling them out at prices competitive with GameStop once the demand dies down.

My problem seems to be only with the old games that are probably not buy-able as new anymore. It is also significantly more expensive to shelve a $60 game and wait for someone to rent it, for the same price, Netflix can afford to have 5 additional DVDs sitting around waiting for someone, I feel like Gamefly's philosophy is to have very little on hand stock, so most games are in transit or in a customer's hands.

I'd like to think they send you #17 because they're trying to get you a game shipped same day, but I've waited a couple days only to receive one down on my list.

[frank64]

I think there are many who don't understand the limits of the way Netflix works and would expect the games when they want them. It happens with DVD's. There are limits you just have to expect for the what we pay for. How can we all get the new releases at once? But don't raise the price even a $1 bringing my average costs to 1.08 instead of 1.00! That would be a ripoff!

[The Dude]

If you don't want to play it, don't put it in your GameQ. Everyone knows if you only have one game in your Gamefly q, you will be prioritized to the top of the list to get that title. Its called Google, people. All this information is out there.

[Lisa]

#17, you think that's bad? Try a DVD service outside of the US. I miss Netflix so much, here in Ireland I can't even set an ordered queue, you just get to specify High, Medium and Low priority. There's been tons of my top priority DVD's that have been sitting there for months and I've gotten low priority DVDs on a fair bit of occasions. Very annoying. Unlike with Netflix I can't just load my queue with any crap I hear of, cause I may actually get it before anything I want to see!

Not to mention it's more expensive than Netflix - 1 Disc unlimited is 13 euro. Better than nothing and their customer service is really good.

[David Grenier]

I've been hoping for my close-to-a-decade Netflix membership that they'd start carrying games, even if (like with Blu-ray) you had to pay a premium for them.

But I can see the reasons they don't.

1. Games are more expensive. This means a higher cost for them AND a greater likelihood that games get lost/stolen.

2. There are far fewer games than movies, meaning that users are choosing from a much smaller list, which will likely lead to bottleneck problems like we see above, and users complaining that the service isn't worth it (personally I think I play 2-3 games a year maybe?)

3. Users tend to keep games for longer. It took me four straight days to play through Metal Gear Solid 4 once. It took me several weeks to play through Grand Theft Auto 4. I played Oblivion for MONTHS and never finished it. I played Fallout for over a month and finished it prematurely. In some ways, this works out for Netflix because they save on constantly processing and shipping discs, but it does go back to the availability problem.

4. Most gamers want only the newest releases. Combined with the already low number of games overall, this leads to a more BLOCKBUSTER like approach of having to stock 10,000 copies of whatever the hot title is (say, GTA5) but after 6 months or a year they will all be sitting on a shelf.

So as a consumer I love the idea of getting the occasional game through Netflix, I'm pretty sure they've investigated the idea and decided against it for solid business reasons. For my own personal curiosity, however, I'd love to see those reasons articulated.

[banter]

That’s why I dropped gamefly. It was nearly impossible to get the exact game I really wanted. Shame because it’s a great service except for availability.

[Redshirt]

I received this answer as to why none of my games are shipping:

"We ship games based on the length of time that you have been waiting for a game (once a return is received in our facility) and the time the desired available game was placed in your GameQ. "

[jerry]

hell i have that problem with netflix all the time constantly tells me all the new releases have long waits and send me movies that are 12 and 15 on my list jumping over all the new releases and even occasionally sending movies that are 20 plus on my que even though others are listed as in sometimes i wonder what my que is for random ideas for movies i may like i guess

[dAVe]

This WAS THE ONLY reason I joined BBonline at the very beginning: to get the 2 free game (or movie) coupons per month. True, the game title selections & number of copies on shelf is poor IMO but at least I'm not dropping $50-$60+ per title on games I just want to try out. I've kept my charter membership active since joining and still get the coupons to use on games today.

The day when Netflix decided to bump up the blu-ray luxury fee from an extra $1 to $4 per month was the day when my BBonline account had an important secondary reason to continue.

I have yet to hear or read any postive comments about GameFly.

[Adam]

I am canceling my gamefly account at the end of the month, but I found the trick to get the game you want: I have to keep my queue on a piece of paper and only add the game that I want. When there's only one game in the queue they have to send it to you. Otherwise, they send whatever they want regardless of your queue order.