Has anyone tried out gamehuddle.com? It seems like a pretty cool concept: you rent games from other users, and they get a cut of the cash. So, you can both try out games from others, and theoretically make some money sharing your games.

I'm wondering if anyone has used them or tried them out and can share their experience. I'm hoping someone can vouch for it before I sign up.

Reminds me of trading to a friend that moves away within the next week and you never see your game again. I don't think I would be okay with sending my games around to strangers.

Well, I'm gullible enough to give it a shot. I'll let you know how it goes and if I ever see my beloved games again. I'm sharing/renting to them a bunch that I never really play myself these days anyway.

I was wondering the same too. Stumbled upon the site a few days ago. Figured I'd give it a try and rented a game on a virtual credit card number so I should be ok if the site isn't legit. Not sure how much I would trust sending my games in yet. I did not see a specific mention on their site of exactly how much percent they take when a game is rented. I like the idea of the site, so I'll give it a try for a bit and see how it goes.

Any updates.

Here's my update so far:

I entered 4 or 5 of my games on the site to share, and hit submit. I was a bit surprised that they then wanted to charge me $5.95 for the cost of shipping them my games. BUT, then they also credited my account with $5 to say "thank you" for sharing my games.
After completing that I remembered a few other games, and entered in another 3 or 4. I was charged again for $4.95 shipping, and was credited with a $5 thank you.
This leaves me with a $10.95 charge on my credit card, and $10 of credit with GameHuddle to rent games with. Not too bad. As long as I want to rent some games, I'm not really losing any money with shipping.

Lesson 1: Enter in all your games to share at once, not in separate transactions.

After a week or so I received my mailer. GameHuddle just wants the discs, and what I received is a big envelope with a bubble mailer inside and a sleeve for each of my discs. I was annoyed amused to see that though I'd submitted my games in two batches, and was charged twice for that shipping cost, they sent me all my game sleeves to be shipping in one consolidated order. Hmph. Like I said, though, I was already credited with thank-you rental credits about equal to what I paid in shipping.

I mailed off my games and in a few days GameHuddle listed that they got them all.

Total time from online submission to them receiving my games: 2 weeks

Now for the waiting game. They just got my games the other day so I haven't earned any money back yet, but I'll keep an eye on things. My guess is that popular games like Modern Warfare 2 will start to earn money faster than generic old games like Motorstorm.

I will be quite pleased if I can turn a bunch of games I no longer play into monthly cashflow!

Please share if you have experiences with renting or sharing your games through this site!

anyone else give this a shot?

I've been curious to try this out. You don't need to 'share' your games in order to rent $1 per day right?

Originally Posted by newtype06 I've been curious to try this out. You don't need to 'share' your games in order to rent $1 per day right?

Correct. You can rent games without sharing, or you can share games without renting.

Update: The rental part of the service seems to work! I put in a request for Bulletstorm, which I assume is kind of in demand these days, and today I got the disc.

I ordered it on the 15th (afternoon), saw that it was shipped on the 16th, and just got it today (Monday the 21st). I think the weekend slowed things down a bit, since it was shipped to work and it may have arrived Saturday but I couldn't get it till today.

I see a pending charge of just $1 in my account. I hope to play the crap out of it over the next 2 days and ship back... c'mon, $2 rental!!

I am using the "free" $10 of rental credit in my account that I got for sharing my games initially.

Keep us updated. I stumbled onto this site recently too but i was turned off by the fact that i had to pay to ship them myy games.

Where does it say that you have to pay shipping? Or was that just for sharing and not renting?

For sharing. I'm not sure about renting

Hmmmm, I might give this a shot.

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There was a dvd-trading site like this some years ago but it eventually folded. Can't remember what the name was. Seems like an interesting idea. But what happens if someone scratches the hell out of your disc/destroys it/loses it/keeps it?

It is somewhat disconcerting that nowhere on the website does it seem to determine how much money you actually receive from the 99 cent/day that the "renter" is spending on your game - ie what percentage gamehuddle keeps. It says you can make "up to 10 dollars a month" off of a game, but that's it.

Originally Posted by savagepastry It is somewhat disconcerting that nowhere on the website does it seem to determine how much money you actually receive from the 99 cent/day that the "renter" is spending on your game - ie what percentage gamehuddle keeps. It says you can make "up to 10 dollars a month" off of a game, but that's it.

Funny you should mention this becuase I emailed support asking about how much each game would make and they gave me a canned response. So i suggested they post that info because it's not a very attractive offer to PAY to ship MY games to strangers without even knowing if i'll recoup the shipping cost. They never emailed back.

Originally Posted by anthonyn Funny you should mention this becuase I emailed support asking about how much each game would make and they gave me a canned response. So i suggested they post that info because it's not a very attractive offer to PAY to ship MY games to strangers without even knowing if i'll recoup the shipping cost. They never emailed back.

I got an email response as well.

Basically, all of the money they make in a month by renting out game X is divided among all of the people who have given them a copy of game X to rent out. I assume they take whatever chunk for themselves as well, though that wasn't mentioned.

So, if your copy of Fattie in Wonderland is out for 30 days and accrues, say, 15 dollars, getting beaten up by some kid who stores his game discs inside of peanut butter sandwiches, while my copy is sitting in their "warehouse" or the owner's basement or whatever, we would BOTH earn 7.50 (assuming we were the only two copies of F.I.W. that huddle had received).

That's seems pretty lame to me.

Originally Posted by savagepastry There was a dvd-trading site like this some years ago but it eventually folded. Can't remember what the name was. Seems like an interesting idea. But what happens if someone scratches the hell out of your disc/destroys it/loses it/keeps it?

I don't know about scratches but if someone rents your game and loses it/destroys it/keeps it/ they're suppose to compensate you for the game.

I've only rented from there. Although they do not charge you for the days it takes to ship to YOU, they do charge you for the days shipping back to THEM. For instance, I rented Terminator Salvation (yes I know) and finished it n a day. I shipped it back to them the very next day. It took 3 days to get to me, I beat it and it took 3 business days to get back.

In total, I paid $5: $1 each day from the day I had it plus the 3 days in shipping back to them AND the Sunday.

I kind of wish they would not charge you for the days coming back to them. Haven't shipped any of my games to them, still a bit cautious in case they don't last and I'm out a game. I might give them a go for a few more games. They use mailers very similar to Gamefly but the pricing and 'pay as you go' model fits me a lot better.