Owning games vs. renting games

Personally I take a lot of pride in my game collection, but I wonder what its like on the other side of the fence. My friend owns an Xbox 360 and absolutely NO games! But he is always playing something, he rents through Gamefly or something and always has the new games on release day and seems to get to play a lot more titles throughout the year than I do.

Just considering if I should stop buying games and try renting, it seems like ity might be cheaper, plus I would be able to experience a lot more games than If I were to have to buy every one.

I can't even remember when the last time I rented a game was.

I buy my video games, because if I like them, I want to keep them forever.

Like movies, I like having a collection of games. It is nice knowing that I don't have to worry about return dates and stuff like that. I can play whatever, whenever. I also like replaying a lot of my games.

I can understand why someone would want to rent only though.

I could never think about renting games.

I like to play games at my own pace and play specific games depending on my mood.

even garbage games get some time from me as well.

I like being able to pick up a game again years down the road and have fun with it. Renting games is how I ended up not having copies of Xenogears, Vagrant Story, Front Mission 3, Twisted Metal 2, and tons of other now-rare PS games (I found a copy of Parasite Eve though, which I wasn't expecting to happen).

I only rent games to check them out and if there is no demo associated with the game. I take pride in my growing collection as well, most of my older systems my parents have at their house still, so I am building my current gen collection up.

I will sell games back if the game is not up to my preferences, and it takes a lot for me to take a game back, it really has to suck. The one game this gen that I had to take back was too human, the first level I loved as the beta, but it fell apart after that :( so much wasted potential and crappy developing.

I occassionally will rent a game if I'm really skeptical on spending full price on it. For instance, I'll probably be renting Facebreaker because while the demo was fun I don't think it was $50 worth of fun. I might pick it up once the price drops down to $30 but since I'm curious right now I'll rent it.

I would highly recommend buying games if you are an avid gamer. I always get the urge to pick out one of my old games and play it and it's nice to have that feeling that I can whenever I want. Although Sony and Nintendo are making it easier to got back and replay the classics but the downside is that you do have to purchase them again. Renting the current gen games now costs a might dollar and I would only do it if I was really intrested in a game but might not have heard a lot about it.

My collection is nearing 900 and they are all easlily stored in 4 snap shut steel boxes that lock with a key and hold 200 games each. Yes I have some I like to keep on display too so they are not all stored in those. Most of my collection comes from used games and garage sales. Garage sales are the way to go if you have access to them. No shipping and handling and most people don't really care what they get for them they just want to get rid of them. Most of the games I get, regardless if they are good or bad, for 50cents to 2 dollars. It really helps your collection grows.

I rent most games and buy the ones I'm really interested in, or know I'll replay.

So I'll buy something like Forza 2 or Rock Band as I know I'll always go back to it. I'll rent the shorter action games as I can blow through them in a week (or less) and swap them for something else without being out of pocket $60.

When I think I can beat it in a week, I rent.

When I believe I can enjoy it over a lifetime, I buy.

I've bought games I've rented and I've rented out games I've bought. No reason being stingy when it's a good way to get someone interested in games you enjoy too.

Beware of Gamefly. While I think they provide a good service all around, you should be aware of the problem I described below. It's a post I made a while back in another thread when someone else asked if they were a good service. Don't mind the tone, I was a bit peeved at them at the time:

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to pay $15.99 a month to be told that a game I wish to rent has a "short wait". If I am paying for a service, they should live up to what they offer. Most of the games I wished to rent were the same as every Joe Blow on the planet wanted to rent as well (the new ones), and more often than not I would end up waiting a few weeks to get the game I wanted.

In the meantime, other games would be sent my way, but not the ones I truly wanted. So if I wanted to keep my name at the top of their reserve list, I would have to remove all the other games from my Q as to prevent them from sending me an alternate game (which would fill up how many I could have at a time and prevent them from sending the new one to me when it did become available) while I waited for the one I really wanted in the first place.

They should have enough inventory to supply demand, and until they do I will not resubscribe. Also, if you decide to cancel, they will offer you cheaper monthly rates. They offered to drop my rate down to $9.99 for a while if I remained with them. Might help you save some dough.

Keep in mind I'm not a member now, so maybe things have changed and they have enough games to fill demand.....but I highly doubt it was easy to get a copy of MGS4 on the day of it's release from them.