Do you miss video stores like Blockbuster and Hollywood video?

The only thing I miss is taking Horror movie covers and putting them in the children's section. :joyful:
 
No way. You can't get anything out of games in a few days like in the 90s. I always forget to return movies too.
 
eh, I miss having someone do me a "favor" and drop off tapes.... at the wrong GODDAMN store... and finding out about it weeks later after getting sent a massive bill. fuck them.
 
I miss it, or perhaps I miss the simpler days. In middle school (late 90s), the local Blockbuster was on my walking route from the bus stop. So I'd usually save a few bucks of lunch money to rent a game for the weekend and return it on Monday. Blockbuster was my primary source to feed my gaming habits growing up. Now a days, we often lack demos and some rely on imperfect beta events to test drive some games (I understand that's not the pupose of a beta). At the same time, given how cheap games are, I often will pick them up on Steam/Humble Bundle sales, then play them once (if ever). :D
 
Zepher said:
I miss the days of going to the Software rental store and renting computer software and games for my PC and Amiga.
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I remember those days from a store called EB Games/Electronics Boutique. Don't remember what year this was.


I don't miss the video rental stores at all. Be Kind, Please Rewind.
 
I still remember that one time a bunch of friends and I went to Blockbuster to rent 28 Days Later...of course they gave us Sandra Bullock's "28 Days". We were so confused as to what we were watching lol
 
I miss them a little bit, childhood memories I suppose. I used to love going to Blockbuster and renting a couple video games at a time and see how many I could beat over my Christmas vacation and then over the course of a year. Perusing the titles and checking out the return area to see if they had a game was just kind of exciting.

Additionally, it was pretty cool when Blockbuster held that championship (at least in my area) where you competed for points on 3 games, Virtual Racer, NBA Jam, and Judge Dredd on Genesis or SNES. The 1st place finishers from each store moved on to the semi-finals (or quarter finals) at Sea World. Then from there on you would advance. I forgot the path because I only finished third at my local store (admittedly, I performed worse on each game than I did practicing all weekend, otherwise I would have placed first) but that cool event was as close to living out "The Wizard" movie experience that a normal kid like myself could at at the time.

For movies it really doesn't matter with the streaming thing but it was fun to go out to the video store pick up food, games and movies for a weekend. It's a just a culture thing that is lost.

Every now and then I still drive by the old building that used to be the Blockbuster and can't help but remember those days of my youth. People still went to arcades and then we'd rent games and then we'd go to Blockbuster to get our fix at home. I don't know, it was just kind of cool.
 
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I do and I dont. I miss the selection, meeting people, getting out of the house. However, I no longer drive so that would kill things. Im on amazon prime and they have a pretty fair collection but just isnt as much fun as going to the neighborhood video shop.
 
I'm pretty sure the old man misses Blockbuster more than all of us combined.

He must've rented 5-8 movies a week back in the VHS days.

Now, he can't even comprehend his current elaborate entertainment system. Between multiple remotes: DVD changer, receiver, speaker setup - linked to both the living room and poolside, DVR, and smart TV; he's totally lost.

(I'm guessing someone at Best Buy took him for quite the ride)

At least I managed to teach him how to play media off a thumb drive. Good God was that a mission, lemme tell ya.
 
epicjas0n said:
I still remember that one time a bunch of friends and I went to Blockbuster to rent 28 Days Later...of course they gave us Sandra Bullock's "28 Days". We were so confused as to what we were watching lol
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Dude, that was a joke off some movie. Don't lie.

*can't recall the name of said movie but yeah
 
horrorshow said:
Dude, that was a joke off some movie. Don't lie.

*can't recall the name of said movie but yeah
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There is an episode of of The Office were Pam is telling Jim about watching 28 Days Later and expecting Sandra Bullock to show up.... Season 3
 
I miss the movie rental places. I loved the ritual of going out to look through hundreds of movies to find a couple to rent. My family did this every Friday after buying groceries for the week. Then watching the movies was always more interesting when nobody had phones to stare at during the films.
 
trying to find anything good on netflix/amazon/whatever is a chore, and they cost at least 3 bucks to rent... my local family video store has a huge selection, can rent two movies for 1 buck for 5 nights, or 1-2 for newer releases, has a decent video game selection, ice cream shop next door, fuck... I'm really sorry you guys still don't have these stores near you ;(
 
My local library has quite a nice selection of video games that can be checked out for a week at a time. The cost is $1. I was using that service waaaay before the chains went out of business. Plus like another poster mentioned, I live in Michgan and there are still other options (like Family Video). I do not miss Blockbuster at all, in the same way I will not miss Best Buy.
 
Not at all...

I remember getting to rent a game for the N64 a few times but the rental period was only a couple days which wasbt enough to enjoy a good game. Also good games were always out of stock...

As for the movie aspect... honestly no... The new releases were always overpriced and frequently not in stock. We didbt rent often growing up, there's probably a good reason...

I'm thankful for Steam on PC for gaming and digital download on consoles. Also allows ne to avoid the crappy overpriced eb games experience... Would you like scratch protection with this game that we are already charging $5-$10 extra for? Would you like to sell your used game to us for $3, so we can sell it for $40?
 
For the people who miss going to the store to pick out a movie... maybe VR will come to your rescue :p
 
Azureth said:
Do you miss old rental stores? Even though I have fond memories of them as a kid I know it's not a huge loss. I can't even imagine how much my parents paid in late fees back in the day. It was admittedly fun going to one and being able to look at the box and hope you got something good when I think of all the times I ended up renting a turd makes me glad we have all kinds of ways to get games today and see what we are getting. Though even the times I managed to pick up a great game it usually involved late fees so overall losing them isn't a huge loss.
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Not even a little bit.

The only time I found them remotely interesting was during the heyday of the Laserdisc. Since few of us had them, it kept the riff raft out :)
 
For sure, they were memories of times when games were games. You didn't need to run a fucking update before you could play. You didn't need to install some fucking 3rd party disto bullshit like uplay. No one watched other people play games online more than they actually played games. You went in, you picked a game, you got hype.
 
I miss video stores for movies. I liked going in and walking around trying to decide what I wanted, seeing other people out and about, going out to eat with the wife and then going in the store to find something to watch. Redbox is limited unless you want something recent and streaming rentals are overpriced.
 
in our small town we had 4 or 5 different places to rent movies from in a half mile radius

the grocery store SuperValu
the movie rental store Max Media (which was Video City before that)
the other movie rental store, which was smelly and i didn't like going so i dont remember their name
and the other grocery store, Pineway (M&M Supermarket after that).
There was also the video / game resale shop Razor Replay. Which eventually stopped renting, and resold cd's and games, cell phone stuff, and pool care products (wtf)

i loved renting a game for the SNES or N64 and playing it all weekend with a friend over. Mortal Kombat, WWF Royal Rumble, Killer Instinct... awww yeahh.

now, there is just a Redbox in front of the first grocery store. all others are closed entirely. I've never used a Redbox, nor do i plan on it. i have netflix and that's it. i almost never watch tv or movies anyway. The local drive-in theatre is fun on occasion.

i remeber going into blockbuster with friends in the bigger cities, being shocked at the price of snacks etc. fuck'em. they never seemed that great..
 
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