Yes, I signed up for a GameFly account a few months ago. I thought, hey, my enjoyment of my relatively new Xbox 360 (and my gamerscore) could benefit from the membership, so why not. I set up my account with dreams of playing the latest and greatest games in existence floating in my head. What was delivered, again to be clear, was far from that pipe-dream.
I started by putting Just Cause in my number 1 slot (hey, I played the demo and was somewhat interested). I them placed a number of secondary games in my queue. I got Just Cause and played it for a month of so. I liked the idea of taking over regions as I had done with Saint’s Row, so I was in to it. But, fairly quickly the game began to drag on (hell, those cut scenes sucked, sucked, sucked). So, back it went to GameFly.
And what did I receive back from GameFly? None other than the third game on my list! A game I had placed on there basically just to have something in my queue. (I mean I owned the great games for the 360 and was using GameFly to spread my wings a little.) I wasn’t miffed or anything. I just tried to play the game, was barely interested and sent it back.
Then, I once again received the third game on my list. (I can’t even remember what it was, it sucked so bad.) So, after a couple attempts at playing it, I sent it back…
Then, I once again received the third game on my list! WTF is the problem with sending me some Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas!?! I want it. I’ve been wanting it. And yes, I still want it! But no, they sent me Enchanted Arms! Have you played this game!? It’s horrible and the voice acting could single handedly make anyone hate video games. After about 20 minutes of attempting to play this game, I packed it up and sent it back.
Than, I once again received the third game on my list!! No Kidding! Yes, Phantasy Star Universe was on it’s way to me. When you think about it, this game wasn’t really number 3 on my list, but actually something like number 6! It only became number 3 after I received a bunch of other game I had little interest in.
As you can imagine, I was miffed. I filled out the form on GameFly complaining. On February 2nd, I wrote:
I’ve consistently received the 3rd game in my queue rather than the first ones. This is very disappointing and I expect I’ll cancel my service if I can’t get the games I want.
On February 5th, I received the following:
Dear Patrick,
If you would rather wait for the game to become available and NOT have the next available game ship, keep an open rental slot by removing all other available games from your GameQ and return a game. When a copy does become available, it will get sent to the member who’s had it in their GameQ the longest and has an open rental slot at that time.
Please note that we do not recommend removing all other games from your GameQ as you would be missing out on receiving games and we will not credit for unused service time.
Wait a second. Did they just say that they’ll ship the first game when they’re good and ready and instead of receiving my 3rd in line, I should just wait for my number one and keep paying monthly dues!?!
Am I wrong in thinking that I pay monthly dues to receive games I want when I want them, and not wait for months (it has been that long) to receive the game in my first slot? I didn’t think so, so I went to their site to cancel my account.
This was additionally fun.
First when I started to cancel my account, I received the following:
Patrick, you still have 12 days left until your next billing period. If you choose to cancel your account now, your cancellation will be effective as of today, and you will not receive a refund or credit for unused time. Are you sure you want to cancel your membership now
Hmm, I’m canceling my account, yet they still want to hose me on the membership. Thanks. I bite the bullet and hit “continue canceling” only to receive:
While GameFly’s in-stock rate is far higher than any other online rental service can offer, we realize it can be frustrating if the game you want is not available. As compensation for your availability issue, GameFly is happy to give you a special, one-time offer on your next month of service for only $9.95 - that’s a 30% savings!
Bastards! So, they don’t want to service me correctly, but want to give me a 30% savings instead!? I would be happier getting that extra 30% of service rather than the 30% savings! Why don’t companies understand this!? This only made me more upset, so I continue canceling only to get this:

Yes, they remind me again, that I’m losing money by canceling their crap-ass service, but the most important thing to notice is this:
All rented games must be received by GameFly within 7 days of cancellation or you will be charged the full retail price.
Whoa! Not another month’s price? Not something fair? No, the entire retail price of the game! I know there have been many exclamation points in this post, but seriously, WTF is up with this? That’s literally 5 to 6 months of membership at my plan’s cost.
Of course, with the approximately 5 day postage on GameFly games, no matter what, you’re cutting it close… But I hadn’t even received the game yet!
The bottom line is, that until GameFly can offer service on par with NetFlix (which I never have trouble getting the number 1 movie in my queue) then they’re offering a service that will frustrate and confuse people. Add to that their “screw you if you don’t like it” attitude and they become a company I will never do business with again. It literally becomes cheaper to buy the games yourself and return them, then play their game.
I’m sure I’ll have no problem remembering: GameFly sucks.