GameFly has recently announced that it will be selling its digital business. For those of you who don’t know, GameFly was basically an online game rental business. You’d rent the games for as long as you like, get the in the mail, and send them back when you are done. Seems like it would be a lucrative business venture, no? So why is it selling perhaps the most lucrative portion of its business?
Well video games are going through the same change that movies went through not so long ago. With the rise of Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming services, people were simply given a better way to rent movies. Instead of paying five dollars to go to a store and rent a movie, you could pay seven dollars and get as many movies as you like, whenever you like, at the touch of a button. One of those is very obviously the better choice.
Netflix started as a mail in system much like GameFly. You’d simply request a movie, watch it, and then send it back. However, streaming is once again just easier to do. Instead of having to mail movies back and forth, streaming lets you get them instantly.
GameFly also had its own digital download service, and this is the service it is selling. Soooo, what’s up? Why isn’t GameFly taking off like Netflix is?
It has to do with accessibility, primarily. Look at it this way. Every single network has their own streaming service. If you wanted to, you could go to the CW 11 for some shows, Comedy Central, for some other shows, and keep hopping around the net for a new network whenever you want to watch a new show. Alternatively, you can go to Netflix or Hulu and watch everything all in one place.
If every game publisher had the same, perhaps GameFly would catch on. However, you don’t need to go onto Ubisoft’s site to stream or download an Ubisoft game, and EA’s site to do the same with an EA game (unless you are on the PC and have to deal with UPlay and Origin), you just download these games directly from the PSN or the Xbox Live Market Place. These already act as a one stop shop for all your gaming needs.
Which is why GameFly’s digital distribution business just isn’t catching on. Why pay extra to be able to rent and purchase games from gamefly when you can just purchase them from your home console. Now the PSN with PlayStation Now is offering ways to digitally rent games as well. It basically makes GameFly’s services pretty redundant, whereas Netflix is working as an aggregator for all your movies and media.
If we are going to pay for a third party service of any type, it has to offer us something that first party services aren’t already doing, and with Microsoft and Sony looking into new ways to stream games, it doesn’t look like that will happen any time soon.