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Arthur,
a 26-year old insurance agent in Tempe, Arizona,
writes that his wife is literally addicted to
video games. Since they got married, they
both play video games. He never played video
games seriously even when he was in school but
since getting married to Nancy, they go through
video games like crazy and spend a great deal of
money on them. He asks, "What can we do
to control how much we spend on video games?
Is there a service like Netflix for video games so
that we can simply rent video games and send them
back when we are done."
The answer is
yes and there are many of them now. They all
seem to follow the model started by Gamefly.
Our readers tell us that they have seen a
significant drop in their expenditure for video games
after they started renting video games from
companies like Gamefly. We have also heard
from many couples who have kids that enjoy video games.
During the summer break when kids spend a lot of time at home,
parents found that a rental program was best for their
budget. Many online rental companies also offer extra
features so that if you have three wild kids who run out of
games as fast as they run out of socks, then you can simply
pay a few extra dollars and sign up for a premium account.
(Related:
Video game addiction)
 We
see another benefit of online rental programs. As a
parent you can also learn more about the game before your kids
can rent it. Either the website itself will have a
review or you can go to many other video games review websites
to learn more about the game. If you think it is too
violent or promotes values that you do not want your kids to
know about, you can simply cancel it after talking to your
kids. Much better way to control what your kids play
versus borrowing from friends in which case you do not even
find out what kids are playing in their rooms.
How
does video game rental program work?
If you have already used Netflix for
movies, then you don't need to read further. You
can simply go to the website of the company that you
like and typically sign up for free. You can test the system for
free for a while so that you can make up your mind after
trying it out. Read on if you are new to renting
video games.
You get the games you want - and play them as long as you want. You
can sometimes get unlimited game rentals for one flat subscription rate, so you can try out as many games as you want. And if you decide you like a game so much that you don't want to send it back,
you can simply buy it. Most companies let you try games before you buy them, without worrying about due dates or late fees.
When you join GameFly, you'll create a list of games you want to rent. When you're finished with a game,
you send it back in its pre-paid envelope, and then the
company sends the next available game in your wish
list.
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