Back in July, Gamefly reached out to me after hearing of my first (subpar) stint as a customer. They offered me 90 days on the house (2 games out) to test their supposedly improved service. Having received about a dozen Xbox and PSP games the last two months, I can report that delivery times have improved over my first go around. Perhaps it’s the new (closer) distribution center on the east coast (Pittsburgh), perhaps they have a better system for processing games – maybe a bit of both. Regardless, the average turnaround on game rentals has been about 7 days versus the previous 10-14. And last week we had a breakthrough… I returned two games on Monday and received two new games the very same week, on Friday. Surprisingly, they beat out the two Netflix discs I also shipped out that Monday – which still haven’t been received. (Very odd. Makes me wonder if the mail person has an ebay side business.)
So what will I do once my 90 days are up? I’m continuing on at the two game out $22.95/mo plan. The trick to finding satisfaction with Gamefly is managing expectations. I know it’ll take about a week door to door to receive a new game, so I won’t ship both games back at the same time. And while the shipping times are better, they may still be too slow to bother with Gamefly’s one game out plan ($15.95/mo). Though Gamefly tells me a new distribution plant in Tampa will come online later this year, with more in the works.