Tired of leaving the house to rent games in Canada's harsh climate? We've got your solution right here. CCC's Vaughn Smith interviews Francois Fortier, President of GameAccess.ca, Canada's premiere game rental via mail service.

CCC: For those reading about GameAccess for the first time, please explain your business and its benefits to the millions of Canadian gamers out there.

GameAccess.ca: www.GameAccess.ca is an online game rental service offered exclusively to Canadian citizens. The rental process is fairly simple, you build a list of games you want to play and we send them to you via Canada Post. Once you are done playing a game, send it back using the prepaid return envelope and GameAccess automatically sends another game from your list. Shipping is free both ways, there are no late fees or due dates, plus there is not limit as to how many games you can swap during your membership. There are numerous advantages to renting games from us, the first one being that we hold over 2500 games for all major consoles, including Nintendo DS and Sony PSP. GameAccess also carries games that Canadians won’t be able to find in any store and members enjoy this exclusive service. Furthermore, with the price of games going through the roof, a lot of our members prefer renting their games to buying them. There are also those who rent to see if the game is worth buying; there is nothing more frustrating then paying 70$ for a game that you finish in under 3 hours. Another key feature that we offer to our members is the convenience of home delivery. When it’s -20C outside, whether you own a car or not, no one enjoys the ride to the video store. It’s time consuming, costly, the selection is poor and you have to bring the game back under threat of a ridiculous late fee. We targeted and solved the issues faced by gamers like ourselves. With GameAccess you don’t just pay to rent a game, you pay for a top notch service. GameAccess was built by gamers, for gamers and we think it shows!

CCC: How long has GameAccess been in business and what kind of effort did it take to get from concept to completion?

GameAccess.ca: GameAccess has been online and in business since November 21st 2005. The project originally started in June of 2005 and took a little under 6 months of intensive labor to see the light of day. Just choosing the games we would carry and building all the content was a massive workload. Ever since the launch, GameAccess has been in constant progress. We are working around the clock to ensure our stock level grows in accordance with our members and we are always developing new and cool features such as the possibility for members to buy games (new and used) at great prices, write and post their own reviews and get free stuff when referring friends.

CCC: You must place a lot of faith in the Canadian postal service to ship expensive games to people for only the price of a 51 cent stamp. You guys would know better than anyone - just how efficient is our postal service?

GameAccess.ca: Obviously the cost of shipping is a huge issue for us. We would love to use FedEx but the membership fees would be around 80$/month and I’m not sure many people would join the service at such a price. At first we thought it would be a headache dealing with a government run company, but we where happily surprised to see how efficient they where. Canada has one of the best postal services in the world, believe it or not. Of course there are the normal seasonal rushes like Christmas and Mothers Day when they get so much more mail than usual that the service slows down a bit, but a side from that, Canada Post is a very reliable way to send out our games.

CCC: Do some members pay extra and ship the games back Priority Post so they can receive product faster? Is there anyway to have GameAccess ship games faster if the customer is willing to pay the postage difference?

GameAccess.ca: Of course anyone who wishes to use a faster shipping method upon sending back their games, like ExpressPost or FedEx, is welcome to do so. Their turn around on games will be faster, but this is at their own expense. A good tip to maximize the membership is to never send back all your games at the same time, that way you always have games to play while waiting for other ones. I will let you in on a little secret: Game Acccess is currently working on a quick return feature that will improve shipping times by 50%.

CCC: Are the GameAccess staff members all diehard gamers? Do you have time to play anymore? If so, name your all time favorites.

GameAccess.ca: For most of us, we were pretty much born diehard gamers. As for the others, the fact that they are surrounded with video games all day makes it kind of hard not to become one. Although we are swamped with work, we always find the time to play a quick game here and there. As an old boss once told me: “you gotta be knowledgeable of your product”, therefore we see it as doing our homework… The all-time best GameAccess game rivalry takes place on the ice of EA’s NHL 2007, where hierarchy is set a side for 3 periods of hard hitting and poetic play making.

All time favorites: