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http://ca.news.finance.yahoo.com/s/...r-close-960-stores-cut-costs-amid-fierce.html

...shit, I hope I still have a job next year. There's at least a dozen BBV's in the Toronto area.

I hope you do too. They closed down one in my hometown, but I'm not surprised. Most of the ones here aren't so good with customer service. The best one is still open.

While I do hope you still have a job. I have to admit I really don't care about movie rental stores anymore. I use Netflix for all my renting needs and I haven;t even had the need to use a movie rental store in at least 2 years.

Between Netflix and Redbox, I really don't see a need for a Rental Store. Ever.

I use Redbox and Netflix instant queue for most my movie watching needs.

I'd imagine Redbox was the killing blow, taking care of the impulse rent that Netflix couldn't provide.

Yeah, and a brand new release for $1 kinda did it too.

i quit using movie stores years ago when I got netflix.

I quit using netflix months ago when I decided that I could usually watch what I wanted on FiOS on-demand.

Tinwhistler said:

i quit using movie stores years ago when I got netflix.

I quit using netflix months ago when I decided that I could usually watch what I wanted on FiOS on-demand.

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I hate you.

can't get fios where you are?

It may be sad, but the last 3 places I've lived, "Does the house have FiOS lines?" was a big factor in the choice.

Blockbuster was the nail in my rental store coffin a few years back. Our local BB never had any friggen movies in stock. Even bad 80's movies were always out. The place was literally a huge store full of empty boxes.

Then the Mrs. got into Alias (since it was the only thing in stock. Ever) and they had every season but season 5. When she asked if they were going to get Season 5 in the store the clerk said "Nah nobody watches this stuff anyway".

We left, went home and signed up for Netflix and have never looked back. Between the Xbox, Laptop, Roku player, and the physical DVD's coming in we're covered.

It honestly doesn't surprise me. For anyone who DOES rent at BBV, they see the company making constant changes just to stay relavant (no late fees, for example).

Friday & Saturday nights have been...well, not exactly booming, but it has been the summer, too.

It wouldn't surprise me if the number of Toronto stores were cut in half. There was one not too far from my store shut down last year with absolutely no notice. There's another about the same distance in the opposite direction that...well, let's just say they don't have a great reputation (employees that don't give a shit, TONS of thieves coming into the store, bad numbers, etc). At the very least, I figure that store will be cut before mine is.

Tinwhistler said:

can't get fios where you are?

It may be sad, but the last 3 places I've lived, "Does the house have FiOS lines?" was a big factor in the choice.

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None yet, but I've been told possibly late 2010 by a reliable source.

I actually spent alot of time still renting from our local store (3mins down the road), and was pretty anti-Netflix (even though I had never used it), mostly because they had a subscription service:

$14 a month and I could rent any 3 movies in the store (that had been out for at least a month) at a time. I could return those movies anytime. That same day, next day, two weeks later, whatever. Soon though I found problems. Such as missing videos in a series (Friday 13th 1-4 6, 8) and lack of anything obscure. Soon Netflix came out with the "Instant Watch" system and shortly there after, for some reason, my rental store did away with the subscription theme and went back to "pay per video"

Yeah my choice was obvious at that point.

Covar;257106][quote=Tinwhistler said:

can't get fios where you are?

It may be sad, but the last 3 places I've lived, "Does the house have FiOS lines?" was a big factor in the choice.

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None yet, but I've been told possibly late 2010 by a reliable source.[/QUOTE]

I've been lucky. I had FiOS in Houston, and the neighborhood I moved into when I moved to Dallas permanently was one of the first neighborhoods in Dallas to get the lines.

I use Blockbuster for most of my movie purchases when they have to get rid of stock via 3 for $10 or 4 for $20 used-DVD sales.

Going out of business sales will be even better though!

^Those used DVD sales are great.

I figure there's no harm in keeping my free membership. If redbox doesn't have something, I just walk over and get it. The one by my university has a good selection, and they've reduced the price to something like $1.50 per night. Usually, though, I watch stuff on the fellow's "Watch it now" for Netflix.

Blockbuster just needs to get a better selection. Get a few classics and obscure movies in there and they could probably do a little better. I also don't like the current rental system of pick x, y or z days to rent it instead of just a buck a day for however long you have it.

Not to defend the company, but from my point of view as a worker:

1) They've had a number of classics. Unfortunately, there are also customers that either never bring them back or purposely keep them out long enough and buy them. The company sucks at getting new rental stock, which is sometimes the movie studio's fault (Disney and their "vault").

2) They make a lot of money by being backed by certain studios, so they get stupidly large numbers of copies for certain titles, only two either sell them off eventually for $6.99 or, believe it or not, are ordered to take X number of copies (20+ sometimes) and destroy them.

I always used Rogers over Blockbuster for rental needs. Blockbuster always looked like they had a massive back catalog of movies but they never had what I was looking for, whereas Rogers always seemed to. Like a couple months ago I was visiting some friends and we got the hankering to watch 80's Flash Gordon for shits and giggles. Rogers had it.

My biggest problem with Rental places is that they would NEVER have the games I wanted to rent. I really want to get Gamefly, but I don't have the cash for it right now

I remember that a while back there was some class action suit against Blockbuster or something like that. One night when I rented a movie, they gave me this super long receipt with dozens of coupons for free rentals. I have to go back and figure out exactly what happened there...

AshburnerX said:

My biggest problem with Rental places is that they would NEVER have the games I wanted to rent. I really want to get Gamefly, but I don't have the cash for it right now

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Isn't Gamefly the same thing (pricewise) as renting 3 games from a Rental Store a month?

Shegokigo;257215][quote=AshburnerX said:

My biggest problem with Rental places is that they would NEVER have the games I wanted to rent. I really want to get Gamefly, but I don't have the cash for it right now

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Isn't Gamefly the same thing (pricewise) as renting 3 games from a Rental Store a month?[/QUOTE]

Yes, but my disposable income is entirely tied up with CoH until I can get a job.

My days in high school oftentimes involved heading over to blockbuster just before closing and swooping up 3 used movies for 15 bucks,or whatever it was, with my friends.

When the weekend would roll around we'd all have about 6 or 9 movies to choose from. It was a glorious time for my movie-watching self.

Thank you, Blockbuster. Our memories are fond.


...Now I'm totally goin' out with that skank netflix.

I can rent movies and games for free at my library and they get some decent new releases.

Bumble the Boy Wonder said:

...Now I'm totally goin' out with that skank netflix.

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She gets around, but her technique is just fantastic. :heythere:

We don't have Netflix here and DVD rental stores are still barely staying in business. DVDs are $6-10 to buy, so why would you pay $4 to rent them? Not to mention that late fees would make it more expensive to rent than to buy and then there's the cost of driving there in the first place every time you want to watch a movie.

Back in 1998, it was a ritual to go rent a movie every Friday night with a friend of mine. Half the time, it would be some real crappy one or my friend would fall asleep (like during the movie The Postman) blaming me for the poor choice of movie - but it was still great fun. But then again, renting a movie was $1.5 and so very cheap and most of the time, it was just about having a laugh at how bad a movie really was.

Since the ritual stopped, I've only visited a rental store 3-4 times tops. As a kid it was always exciting to see all those movies (and even sneaking into the R-rated section now and then) but as a grown up, I walk past rows of crap movies and more crap movies and all the best ones I've already seen. I bet I would have a hard time just renting 3 movies - I used to pick 10 with ease.

As a former employee, I have some good memories of working there, but the last few months of employment were a nightmare... I too hope you have a job, but also I can't help but enjoy watching the place that screwed me fail

Ars Technica had a pretty decent read on how they could've saved themselves. Some of it was stupid, but a few of the points were valid. Commenters sure didn't like it.
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/08/opinion-can-blockbuster-be-saved.ars