Gamefly Service 2012 - My Review

I've been trying out the Gamefly service for the past couple of months thanks to the free month deal posted here awhile back. I planned to cancel after my first month, but Gamefly lured me in with a $13 dollar offer to stay for another month. I've been tempted to stay on for a third month since Gamefly rewards gives you $5.00 credit for each three months of subscription.

The Gamefly rewards does offer some temptation to remain a subscriber. The longer you stay, the more rewards you get like 10% off used games. The service also offers free PC games to download. I gave this service a test drive. It took like three hours to get the client installed, and Disciples 3 downloaded to my PC. It is a full download, not a streaming service like Onlive. I was pleased though that the game ran great on my PC. Unfortunately, even though they advertise 100's of free PC games, most of them are crap unknown titles.

Another issue is cost. Even with the rewards, there is just no value if you look at the yearly cost. I was hoping that two game plan would always keep me playing something. Instead of buying games, I could use the service to play and beat the new releases, and then buy the games used a year later for dirt cheap if I wanted replay value. Yet, the two game plan runs for about $23 a month plus tax and fees. That bumps it up to about $26 for me. At that rate, I would be spending over 300 bucks a year for the service with nothing to show for it. The cost of a year of Gamefly would buy me 5 full priced games. I could buy 15 games priced at $20 for the cost of a year of Gamefly and still recoup some money from reselling or trade-in.


But my biggest gripe is the turnaround time. It's hard to feel like I'm getting value when Gamefly just takes an extremely long time to receive, process and send out games. For example, I mailed back a game on May 14th. They received and mailed me a new game on May 18th. Now it's Wed, and I still don't have the new game, and I am only like 10 hours from the mailing center in Austin. I might as well be on the one game plan, but then I would be spending half of the month just waiting and waiting.


Gamefly's rental service is simply not worth the price. Grade F

Yup, they're terrible, especially on a one game plan. They never got any game I wanted (top queue games) to me. The turn around time was always a week and a half, and during my preview month, it was two weeks to the day. At one point, they had my game and waited five days to ship out another, even though four or five of the ten games on my queue were available. It took an e-mail to customer service after the fourth day to get them to ship me another game. Never again.

/edit: I'm not "in the boondocks". They need distribution centers that aren't in the corner of the country. Austin is the only DC that is in the midwest.

Gamefly is just fine. It's not their fault that you live in the boondocks.

I have two separate two games out at a time accounts and just got four new releases. As long as I mail back games on Friday, the next Tuesday I get new releases 100% of the time.

I also recently got Asura's Wrath and RE:ORC after release date because I hadn't signed up for the second account yet when they were released.

I have been with Gamefly for about 4 years on the 3 game out plan and havent had very many problems. My turnaround time is 4 to 5 days from the time I mail one back until I receive another one. I get new releases consistently a day or two after they are released. It has saved me money in the long run by not buying alot of the games. I also buy their used games pretty damn cheap when I want one for my collection.

[quote name='kingkiller33']I've been trying out the Gamefly service for the past couple of months thanks to the free month deal posted here awhile back. I planned to cancel after my first month, but Gamefly lured me in with a $13 dollar offer to stay for another month. I've been tempted to stay on for a third month since Gamefly rewards gives you $5.00 credit for each three months of subscription.

The Gamefly rewards does offer some temptation to remain a subscriber. The longer you stay, the more rewards you get like 10% off used games. The service also offers free PC games to download. I gave this service a test drive. It took like three hours to get the client installed, and Disciples 3 downloaded to my PC. It is a full download, not a streaming service like Onlive. I was pleased though that the game ran great on my PC. Unfortunately, even though they advertise 100's of free PC games, most of them are crap unknown titles.

Another issue is cost. Even with the rewards, there is just no value if you look at the yearly cost. I was hoping that two game plan would always keep me playing something. Instead of buying games, I could use the service to play and beat the new releases, and then buy the games used a year later for dirt cheap if I wanted replay value. Yet, the two game plan runs for about $23 a month plus tax and fees. That bumps it up to about $26 for me. At that rate, I would be spending over 300 bucks a year for the service with nothing to show for it. The cost of a year of Gamefly would buy me 5 full priced games. I could buy 15 games priced at $20 for the cost of a year of Gamefly and still recoup some money from reselling or trade-in.


But my biggest gripe is the turnaround time. It's hard to feel like I'm getting value when Gamefly just takes an extremely long time to receive, process and send out games. For example, I mailed back a game on May 14th. They received and mailed me a new game on May 18th. Now it's Wed, and I still don't have the new game, and I am only like 10 hours from the mailing center in Austin. I might as well be on the one game plan, but then I would be spending half of the month just waiting and waiting.


Gamefly's rental service is simply not worth the price. Grade F[/QUOTE]


ummm lets take that say your at a one game Plan and you buy youself GIFT MEMBERSHIPS where you can get 2 months for 20 (10 per month)

120 a year say 130 a year after tax

and you want new 60 buck game.. even if you only got one game a month and you was LUCKY to get half of each game ...

60 x 12 games is 720 bucks - 360 (hell say you get 400 out of the games)

it will cost you 320 bucks to BUY 12 NEW RELEASE GAMES compair to 120 to rent 12 new releases


Ummmm you just save yourself 200 bucks ..

I was with Gamefly for 3 years on their 2 game out plan. I don't know their distribution structure but it was terrible. I would mail Game 1 on Friday morning at the city's main post office. I would always go inside b/c I did not trust the outdoor mail bins.

Often times, I would not get confirmation until Thursday of the following week, that GameFly received my game. Then they would send my next game the following Monday. All in all, it was a week without a game (but I still paid the full amount).

As an experiment, I told GameFly that I lost my mailer. They told me to send the game back using a USPS media mailer (like a padded envelope). I did that and I tracked the package. Again, I dropped the package off on Friday morning (sent via Priority mail). The package was delivered to GameFly offices on Monday. Again, no acknowledgement of receipt until the following Thursday.

The other part of GameFly's terrible service is their customer service. Your emails are responded with a cookie cutter response. Their favorite phrase is "We are looking into this for you." There is no follow up. If you tweet them, they ask you to DM the information. Again, there is no follow through.

I am sure other people have other views of GameFly. This is just my two cents.

[quote name='iambeaker']I was with Gamefly for 3 years on their 2 game out plan. I don't know their distribution structure but it was terrible. I would mail Game 1 on Friday morning at the city's main post office. I would always go inside b/c I did not trust the outdoor mail bins.

Often times, I would not get confirmation until Thursday of the following week, that GameFly received my game. Then they would send my next game the following Monday. All in all, it was a week without a game (but I still paid the full amount).

As an experiment, I told GameFly that I lost my mailer. They told me to send the game back using a USPS media mailer (like a padded envelope). I did that and I tracked the package. Again, I dropped the package off on Friday morning (sent via Priority mail). The package was delivered to GameFly offices on Monday. Again, no acknowledgement of receipt until the following Thursday.

The other part of GameFly's terrible service is their customer service. Your emails are responded with a cookie cutter response. Their favorite phrase is "We are looking into this for you." There is no follow up. If you tweet them, they ask you to DM the information. Again, there is no follow through.

I am sure other people have other views of GameFly. This is just my two cents.[/QUOTE]

that is what LIVE help is for

[quote name='slidecage']ummm lets take that say your at a one game Plan and you buy youself GIFT MEMBERSHIPS where you can get 2 months for 20 (10 per month)

120 a year say 130 a year after tax

and you want new 60 buck game.. even if you only got one game a month and you was LUCKY to get half of each game ...

60 x 12 games is 720 bucks - 360 (hell say you get 400 out of the games)

it will cost you 320 bucks to BUY 12 NEW RELEASE GAMES compair to 120 to rent 12 new releases


Ummmm you just save yourself 200 bucks ..[/QUOTE]


I'm not seeing how you come up with those numbers. According to Gamefly, a 12 month gift subscription is $155.00.

Of course, you are also assuming that Gamefly will always send you a new release game. I'm still waiting for Kingdom of Amular and that game came out months ago. And most games drop quickly from the $60 price.

You just need to learn to use the system, effectively.

Allow me to show you how i used the system.

Right now i only have the one game out at a time subscription, cause of budget. So i will be using that as my example on what you can do to get games that you want. And i get all the new releases that same week of release.

You need to have very little games in your Q at a time, assuming you want new releases. If i wanted to get Max Payne 3 (MP3) that same week that it is released, then i needed to just have Max Payne 3 sitting in my Q (I have Darksiders 2 in there now, but that game isn't out yet).

I had Witcher 2 out as my rented game, but didn't keep it long cause i didn't dig the game. Assuming i wanted to beat the game. I would need to beat it and send it back to Gamefly before 5/11, since MP3 comes out 5/15. Basically give enough time for Gamefly to receive Witcher 2 and I sit on no games for a bit with MP3.

Since MP3 is the only game in my Q that is coming out that week and i didn't have any games rented out, they will ship it 5/14. Cause they don't want people to be sitting around with no games, and you are forcing them send out a new release that has sat alone in your Q for a while.

I have gotten all new releases that i wanted to get that same week of release. Usually they send it out on the Monday, day before release. It usually took until Thursday to get it, but they have to quicker with shipping and i get them on Wednesday now.

If you have the two game system, it's a lot easier to do the rotation and give you longer time to play games. That's what i did at first and had all the games i wanted to play easily.

As a noob, i kept putting older games that i maybe wanted to play in my Q. And they would send them. Which didn't help cause i would get them a few days before a new release would come out. When i new release comes out and you don't get it, expect a low chance of getting it in rental.

Plus. I buy games from Gamefly. It's a guarantee that a game you rent will drop in price in 6 months, and with the coupons. You can get a game for 5-10$, which i have bought tons that way. Even if you want to buy a game new, you just rent it, recieve it, and pay 40$ to keep it. That is 20$ cheaper than most retailers and it is "brand new". Brand new is embellished because they do open the games to send out the disk, but you get all of that original packing when you buy. Codes, DLC, whatever comes with new release games.

I woudl agree that the service could be cheaper, only because i live on a budget. But the service works fine, when you know how to use it effectively. Just like anything else in life.

I have saved tons of money on using Gamefly.

[quote name='kingkiller33']I'm not seeing how you come up with those numbers. According to Gamefly, a 12 month gift subscription is $155.00.

Of course, you are also assuming that Gamefly will always send you a new release game. I'm still waiting for Kingdom of Amular and that game came out months ago. And most games drop quickly from the $60 price.[/QUOTE]

you can buy yourself a 2 month membership 1 at a time for like 20 bucks


1. Select a Membership

Select a Game Plan

Select Number of Months
1 month - $15.95
2 months - $20.95 (Save 12%)

10.50 a month for 1 at a time if you just keep buying prepaid and most if not all RPG games on the ps3 HOLD their vaule for 3 to 6 months so if you want to play new games day 1 your going to pay 60 per game

I have been using Gamefly for years. It is a great service. You can't expect to get a new release game everytime, however, some people have previously mentioned ways to boost your chances of getting a new release.

I know this is about the service, but purchasing games from them has been extremely good. Best used game retailer by FAR!

I just had to mention that... I want them to get that CAG award for 2013.

I tried gamefly once and while the turnaround time wasn't an issue for me (I live in western mass) getting new releases was, even using the one game in Queue strategy.

For that reason I stopped.

Also though, I don't like feeling like I need to play a game and send it back to get my moneys worth. I hate renting games bc I don't like being rushed. I like sitting down and playing whatever I feel like, not what "needs" to be played.

Decent service though, I'd give them a B-

Gamefly didn't send me Prototype 2 at launch despite having an empty slot

Gamefly sent me Max Payne 3 and Ghost Recon Future Soldier at launch with an empty slot

Gamefly is smarter than you think

I used to have Gamefly but I just couldn't justify the cost anymore. I'm also not in the "boondocks" but the turnaround time was sluggish as well, and twice the discs were "lost in transit" -- one time coming to me, the other being returned back to them. After a while, I found myself buying so many games cheap via CAG that I decided to cut it and haven't missed it either.

Still love them for Used deals though

[quote name='matrix9280']Gamefly is just fine. It's not their fault that you live in the boondocks.[/QUOTE]

In my experience, poor turnaround has nothing to do with living in the boondocks. I live in the Los Angeles area, 23 minutes away from the closest distribution center. The turnaround time for me was about the same as the OP's.

We'd like to reach out to each of you on this forum and answer any questions you may have about your GameFly account or the service that we provide. We encourage you to e-mail [email protected] and mention your post. Then, we can have Rep reach out to address your inquiries. Hope to hear from you soon!

Getting new releases on time takes planning and patience. For single game members you really have to prioritize and make sure your game is in before the release date. Doing this I never had many problems with getting my new games. Several times I even recived new releases the day after launch.

I stopped using them recently but not because I wasn't getting my games but because there just wasn't much coming out I was intrested in, plus I have a fairly big backlog and wanted to catch up.

I cancelled my subscription to GameFly awhile back. I had the plan that allowed you to receive three games at a time. I just decided to purchase games that I really like, instead of trying out a bunch of games that aren't worth it. However, I would advise buying used games from them, rather than going to GameStop.