Editorial: Rent!

No, this isn’t an article about the musical, this is a public service announcement. Now that the DVD is following the VHS into the technological afterlife and game publishers & developers are warming to EA’s ’10$ solution’ idea, society is being sent a very clear message: in a few years time, you get one of two options when wanting to watch a film or play a video game: buy it new or rent it.

Outside of the independent film and gaming industries, I’m saying do the latter.

Films and video games are the two types of products that I buy far more than anything else outside of food (which aside from the defunct items shelf in the corner of supermarkets doesn’t have a second-hand market). A large portion of whatever money I have goes towards my film and video gaming needs, but I don’t make it a habit of buying new films and new games. My film collection is an array of the best but I haven’t paid more than £5 for any of them and my gaming collection is far emptier than my gaming lifestyle would suggest.

This means that I own films & games that someone else has owned and used. I prowl like a nerdy cougar around electronic stores looking for the best bargains, then I pounce. The most expensive games I’ve bought in 2010 were Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 for £18 and Forza 3, which cost me £9.95 and was in a pre-owned sale. The most expensive films I’ve bought were Iron Man and the Alien/Aliens boxset, which both cost me £5.

2009 was a bit different: I started to get more money than I was used to and went giddy with power. In one of the biggest monetary mistakes I’ve made I bought the Hardened Edition of Modern Warfare 2 on the day of release which set me back £55 – granted, it was £10 off and I actually only paid £22 in cash after trading in a bunch of films and games I had no further use for but it was a lot of money for me to spend on a game nonetheless.

I felt dirty and stupid for buying it and after playing the single player and some of the multiplayer, I ended up giving it away on Twitter: I didn’t want to see it anymore because it reminded me that I had spend £55 on one game. I could have bought five used copies of Forza 3 and a copy of Iron Man and had loose change afterwards – my one copy of Forza 3 will give me more entertainment value than Modern Warfare 2 did for me.

I’m taking a break from playing Fifa 09 on the Playstation 3 to write this: I did actually buy Fifa 10 last year when it was on sale but I sold it soon after because I needed some money for other things and because I didn’t play it. I then realised I wanted to play Fifa still so I bought Fifa 09 for £2.50 and have since played it more than any other game this year. When Fifa 10 was released, I did go into a shop with some intention of possibly buying a copy new – I know, I’m a bad person – but whilst doing my usual bargain hunting I spotted Fifa 09 and Fifa 08, the now forgotten predecessors, for £5 and £2 respectively.

They were both on the Xbox 360 – that was just £2 for an Xbox 360 game. However, I wanted Fifa 10 because I loved the demo and my friends would also have it: thankfully I didn’t buy the game and I waited for the predicted huge drop in price, which took a bit longer than I expected but did happen. Looking back though, I wish I had bought Fifa 09 when I saw it – I do have the obvious thought right now of “it only cost me £2.50 so I would have spent £2.50 more” but if I had bought it last year, I would have had nearly a whole year of playing a game that will last for me a very lengthy amount of time.

Either way though, my money would have/has been made back. The best feeling is knowing you’ve used your money wisely – I doubt I’ll ever feel like I’m getting my money’s worth from a game or a film that I’ve paid full retail for.

This is where this editorial’s point comes in: renting for me is the lesser of two evils and its perks make the idea of my money never going to the makers of the game easier for me to push to the back of my mind. Renting gives people the opportunity to play games or watch films without breaking the bank and it was something I could get behind.

I can see why people don’t rent: that “new game” or “new film” feeling is something that I miss with my frugal lifestyle. Renting games & films does strip the feeling of ownership and personalisation away from you – you don’t get to add your new acquisition to your collection and the inevitability with renting is that you have to give it back. Renting games & films is the equivalent of borrowing something: even if your rental service says “keep it as long as you like”, after a while you’ll get a glimpse of your borrowed game/film disc sitting in a generic sleeve or in a case with a huge rental sticker slapped onto it, and that lack of personal attachment will be apparent.

When you buy something you usually become attached to it, whether it’s a television, a computer, a game or film or CD, or a bed. You spend time with it and pretty soon it has become something you can’t replace or live without – if you name your product when it finally breaks, you feel like it’s died…

A rented product has no soul, but I’m okay with that because, as I’m an online renter, renting gives me the ability to play games on the day of release without paying full retail for as long as I want before I lose interest in the game. It also lets me watch pretty much any film I want to watch very easily – as a Lovefilm user, the service lets me watch some films and television for free online as an added bonus for me using their service. I feel satisfied as a customer and with my bank balance more easy to digest too, I see renting as a positive thing. I’m not fussed about not having that personal feeling: because I rarely buy a game or film now when I buy it’s a special moment anyway.

The cost of high street renting is less cost-efficient as I’ve recently experienced: if I pay £6.25 for one game for one week, if I get four games a month, one at a time, that costs me £25. Eight films a month, two at a time which I get to keep for a week, will set me back £24. In comparison, on Lovefilm I am currently paying £14.99 a month to rent two games at a time, which I get to keep for as long as I want, and I can rent as many times a month as I like. I also rent films which is in the same package price.

Three months of Lovefilm would cost me £45 – in comparison, Red Dead Redemption and Splinter Cell ConViction which are the two games I’m renting at the moment would cost (at the time of writing) a hefty £70. A few times I’ve got games from Lovefilm on the day of release, other times I’ve had to wait a little while but never more than a week. That purchase of Modern Warfare 2 was to play the game day one with friends and to have that feeling of personal ownership but I’d have been far more happy in the long term waiting a week, renting it and keeping it for the time I actually got entertainment value out of it.

To some I’m probably a bad person for the way I game and watch films, to others maybe my ethos is more relatable. If you’re like me and you like having more money and don’t get as personally attached to things as other people do then perhaps you’ll agree with me when I say renting is the best way of fulfilling your gaming and film needs.

I’m interested to see what you think of it: do you see buying something at retail a worthwhile investment, or do you prefer to rent?