* Cost: $15.95/mo - 1 Game Out
* Over 7000 Titles
* Games Arrive In 2-4 Days
* Free 10 Day Trial
* Xbox, Xbox 360, PSP, PS2, PS3, Game Cube, Game Boy Advanced, Nintendo Wii, & Nintendo DS
* Email Support

Background on GameFly:

GameFly is currently the biggest online video game rental company in the US, and they have been doing business since 2002. They offer new members a ten day free trial for a two games at a time plan ($22.95/mo thereafter), or the chance of getting the first month's membership at $8.95 for one game at a time or $12.95 for two games at a time. The prices after the free trial incentive ends are:

• $15.95 per month for one game at a time
• $22.95 per month for two games at a time
• $29.95 per month for three games at a time (although this option requires the member to have an active account of good standing for sixty days or more)
• $36.95 per month for four games at a time (as above)

There is no long-term commitment and can cancel, upgrade or downgrade any time you want – no questions asked. Just go into “My Account” on your membership page, choose “Change My Membership Plan,” and you are good to go. Read the rest of this entry

* Cost: Starts at $8.99/mo
* 7000+ Titles
* Buy, Trade, and Rent Video Games
* Free Shipping on all transactions
* All consoles
* Customer Service 561-450-5123 – (Mon – Sat, 11AM – 5PM)

Gamemine.com is an up and coming service that continues to make improvements that make this a serious contender in the game rental market. Here's a breakdown of their service:

When you sign up with Gamemine, you are prompted to fill up your queue (which they call your "minelist") with your desired games. As a game becomes available it will be shipped to you and once you return it you receive the next game in your queue. Your very first game is sent with a delivery confirmation from USPS. Your card is charged when the game is sent out to you. Everyone’s game is tracked throughout the mail system until delivered.

In the past Gammine offered a 2x speed option for members who remained active for over 3 months. They have recently implemented the 2x speed option for everyone on the first day of service. 2x speed basically means that you can have your next game mailed out as soon as your last game is put in the mail. This significantly reduces your waiting time for games. Gamemine claims that their 2x speed delivery system is twice as fast as any other game rental service.

Gamemine's website is very user-friendly and games are broken out into browse-able categories that you can sort by things like console, game title, release date, publisher and more. They have a real decent selection of over 7000 titles and growing fast. At the top of each category page they feature the most popular games for that category and below each individual game you will see other recommendations i.e. "You Might Also Like". This is just a handy feature to stay on top of new releases or games that you might not have heard about. They also recently added a new filter system for searching for games of your choice such as Genres, Date Released, User Rating, Buy Price, Trade Price, Rent Availability, ESBR Ratings, and Coming Soon. For your trades, you can simply input the UPC or Title of the game to see how much it is worth. Although you initially pay for the shipping, the cost will be credited to your account once the game is received. All purchased games are shipped for free.

Gamemine is one of the few services that does offer parental control features which enable parents to block unwanted games by rating or genre. With this feature it's really easy to keep your kids playing games appropriate for their age range. Gamemine also offers the you the ability to rent movies in PSP format. The selection of titles isn't massive but a number of the big ones.

They now offer live customer service allowing you to speak with a representative for any questions about your account. In addition Live chat and email customer service are available as well. The customer service hours are from Monday through Saturday from 11AM to 5PM. The customer service phone number is 561-450-5123.

User's are not required to opt-in to the rental service in order to sign up for gamemine.com. You can participate in purchasing and trading in games without having the rental service.

It's not surprising that this company is really growing their customer base as it delivers really decent service at a good price.

•    No free trial
•    $14.95 for one game for the first month; $17.95 each month thereafter
•    Offers Wii, Nintendo DS, PSP, Playstation, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Xbox, and Xbox 360 games
•    Shipping time: one to two days
•    2,400+ titles available

Gamerang Review:

There are many different video game rental sites out there, and Gamerang is yet another of them.  The company features distribution centers spread across the United States—California, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Minnesota, to be exact.  This means your games will ship from the closest distribution center to minimize shipping time.  There are no late fees or return dates.

There is no free trial or money-back guarantee, but your first month is only $14.95 for one game out.  It’s $17.95 for each additional month.  If you want two games a month, it’s $24.95.  Three games are $49.95, and four games are $59.95.  After that, you can add an addition game up to ten games for $9.95 a title.  The site currently has a two month special for $40.  They also give you a year’s subscription to Wired Magazine if you spend more than $9.95, which means you get the subscription no matter which monthly package you take. Read the rest of this entry

* Cost: $12.95/mo - 1 Game Out
* Over 4000 Titles
* Games Arrive In 2-4 Days
* Free 10 Day Trial
* PlayStation® 3, PlayStation® 2, PSP, Xbox 360, Xbox, Wii, GameCube, Nintendo DS, and Game Boy Free
* Email Support

Among GottaPlay’s most unequaled characteristics is their video game swapping programs. Rather than joining up a conventional game rental program, you can opt to trade your games with different players. Your membership comes with mailing envelopes, postal tracking and GottaPlay’s warrantee to have your swapped video games returned.

Upon signing for the game trading program, you create a trading list which contains your personal games, and then you select the games you want to receive and play. When another member elects to play one of your video games you simply mail them the video game (manual and cover art are optional) and then another member will send you the games that you requested.

GamePoints are used to manage the game trading system. Traders are awarded Gamepoints after they successfully mail games within a specific time frame. You need to have enough Gamepoints in your account to begin receiving games. For an additional $1.99 per trade, you are able to buy Gottaplay's insurance known as a "GameShield" which will ensure that your game will be replaced (by Gottaplay) in the event that your games are stolen, damages or lost during a trade.

Gottaplay has done a lot lately to improve the quality of the site including game pages with reviews, videos, ratings from 1up.com, game descriptions and screenshots. That said they are still in the process of making the website more complete and some games do lack complete info. In addition, we have noticed some strange discrepancies, like the fact that the 1up.com ratings on Gottaplay differed from the ratings on the actual 1up.com site.

There are no late fees or due dates for any of the games, and free shipping is provided on both rentals and trades. You can also rent PSP movies as a Gottaplay member, however the section is not that extensive. At this time there are no parental controls built into the system.

Game Inventory:
GottaPlay has an inventory of 4000 plus games covering all the major consoles including newer platforms such as PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii. In addition Gottaplay also has rentals for the major handheld devices such as Nintendo DS, PSP & GameBoy Advance. They do a good job of keeping the inventory updated and you can usually find all the big new releases.

Searchability: 
Gottaplay has some powerful and user-friendlt ways to search for games. You can filter your searches by platform and genre or search for a specific title.
There are twelve total categories of games which include, shooter, fighting, sports & music, new releases, most wanted and coming soon. The only thing that is missing that would be nice is a way to search for all games for a given console.

Delivery Speed:
With 9 distribution centers around the US, Gottaplay covers the country pretty well. Gottaplay centers are located in Connecticut, Maryland, Georgia, Illinois, Colorado, Arizona, Texas, California. One unique feature is that Gottaplay allows you to track the status of a game that is on route to you. This really helps you keep track of games you are trading.
 
Monthly Plams: 
GottaPlay has 3 monthly pricing options. Each plan is based on how many games you have out at one time. If you want to go with the 3 game plan then you have pay a three month deposit

• 1 Game- $12.95
• 2 Games- $20.95
• 3 Games- $28.95

Trading games is a different situation. You are able to do trades at $1.99 per trade or for $9.99 per month you can do unlimited trades.

 Summary:  
Gottaplay continues to strengthen and refine their service and website and if you are into trading games my be the perfect option for you, Games are delivered in a timely manner and all in all this is a good service.

Back in 2009 Blockbuster Video was facing serious financial challenges (some would say they still are) which they decided to address, in part, by adding video games to their online rental program. After a slow start the company seemed to catch up somewhat with sites like GameFly. But several years later where do they stand? Is it still a service worth utilizing, or should consumers look elsewhere?

In order to make this determination we'll look at pricing structure, titles, and how the rental process actually works. After reading all the information you should be able to make an informed choice on your own. Keep in mind that all of this information was taken directly from Blockbuster's own promotional materials and may or may not be accurate at this time.

Pricing Structure

When the Blockbuster announced the addition of games to their online platform in 2009 they were adding them at no extra charge. Back then the monthly rate was $8.99; certainly not a bad deal for an unlimited number of movie and game rentals. In 2011 prices have increased somewhat. Not only that, Blockbuster offers a three-tiered pricing structure depending on how much renting you plan to do.

For $11.99/month you can get unlimited rentals - but only one disc at a time. $16.99/month gets you two discs at a time; three discs will cost you $19.99/month. All three tiers include no due dates and five in-store exchanges per month. For the more prolific gamers among us, the one disc plan hardly seems worth the cost; especially if you like to order movies along with your games. The three disc price seems much more reasonable.

Titles

Blockbuster advertises the fact that many of their new releases come a full 28 days before they reach Netflix or Redbox. How much this applies to games really can't be known, but a brief look through their menu reveals a sparse supply of titles for the major platforms.

For the Wii console, for example, Blockbuster carries on 12 titles including Tiger Woods Golf 2012, Mario's Sports Mix, and Cars. PS3 and Xbox have titles have a few more selections like Red Faction, Mortal Combat, and Homefront. If you're looking for new games, Blockbuster says NCAA Football 12, Madden 12, and Assassins Creed are on the way.

Rental Process

Like most online video game rental services, you order your games and wait for them to be delivered in the mail. Blockbuster doesn't provide any rental games on demand like some of their competitors do. Once you receive your games in the mail you can keep them as long as you like, but you're not allowed to get any new ones until the old ones are returned.

It's unclear whether or not you can return video games to a local store; we've read comments both ways. But if it turns out that you can't, you'll mail the games back in a postage-paid envelope so you can order new ones.

Perhaps the service will improve in future month's and we will be updating this as it does. We welcome your comments and feedback.