My experience back then was rather poor – I only got to play one game in those two weeks because the total turnaround time was ten days. That means that it took ten days total from the time I mailed a game back to the time I got my next one. In a way, the long wait was forgivable back then. GameFly had only a single distribution center, way out in California, and I was living in semi-rural Alabama. I concluded that it was a cool service if you lived out West but wasn't worthwhile for me.
Since then, I have moved a thousand miles westward, and GameFly has added three new distribution centers around the country. I live roughly equidistant from the ones in California and Texas, so I figured it was time to give the company another shot at my business. Unfortunately, the service hasn't improved much in the past five years.
Last Monday, I returned my first game, Gears of War, and began eagerly awaiting the next one on my queue, Indigo Prophecy. I got notice of the exchange on Friday and received the new game today, Monday. So the turnaround time has improved from ten days to only seven. This is still totally inadequate considering that I'm paying by the month.
For comparison, let's examine my service from Netflix last week. I mailed in a movie on Monday, the same day that I returned Gears of War. I became slightly alarmed on Tuesday when Netflix didn't send me a notification that they'd received the disc. By Wednesday, their website acknowledged widespread shipping problems due to a massive computer error. By Friday, they fixed the problem and shipped out my delayed disc, which I received on Saturday. Netflix was so embarrassed by last week's delays that they are issuing a 15% credit on my next bill. In summary, Netflix had a corporate disaster and still replaced my disc two days faster than GameFly's regular service could.
Is this a fair comparison? Yes, absolutely. GameFly is a blatant imitation of Netflix, sharing exactly the same business model and even similar websites. The main difference is that Netflix has eighteen distribution centers, compared to GameFly's four. I recognize that Netflix is an older, more established, and more successful company, but in my opinion, GameFly lacks the minimal infrastructure necessary to provide efficient service to anyone living outside Los Angeles, Tampa, Pittsburgh, or Austin. In fact, former staff member Karl Castaneda told me that he couldn't get timely GameFly service even when he lived in Tampa, so I don't think you can put much blame on the U.S. Postal Service.
The only way I can see to get consistent value out of GameFly is to use their two-game plan and stagger them so that you always have one game at home and one in the mail. But then you're really paying the two-game rate to have one game at a time, aren't you? A more reasonable plan from the consumer's point of view would be a plan that charges you per game rental instead of a monthly fee. It won't let you get the games any faster, but at least you wouldn't be paying for rental time when games are in the mail or churning through the warehouses. Or best of all, GameFly could spend a lot more capital for additional distribution centers and improve overall efficiency of the process, so their customers can receive the service they expected in the first place. As things stand now, I can't justify paying $15.95 next month to rent a couple of games at the most. Even my local video stores have better prices than that.