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The last 300 Blockbuster Video stores are closing down.

I worked at various Blockbuster stores over the course of about ten years. The last few years were at one of the stores in Toronto. And honestly, it was a slow death as we watched other locations around us close down. Eventually, we got word that ours would be shut down in about 3 months time. All our rental was immediately changed to used sales. Then, about a month later, we were told the store was closing in a week, rather than two months.

I liked working there. I met a lot of good friends working there, either fellow employees or customers. I also came out with a lot of funny stories. I still miss working there sometimes, but honestly? It was a dying business. With Netflix, pirating, On Demand movies, etc, physical rentals were a dying breed.

I'm sad to see the business go, but I'm not surprised.

Aww. I still have my original membership card.
I can't say it comes as a surprise either. They clung desperately to their business model, I'll give them that.
Too bad it sank.

--Patrick

I fear within the next 3-4 years, this will happen to cable as well.

Netflix. Steaming. This is where the money is at.

Fuck your cable packages, just give me WHAT I WANT

Jay said:

I fear within the next 3-4 years, this will happen to cable as well.

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From your lips to God's ears.

--Patrick

The only big thing that cable has a stranglehold on right now is sports programming, which is why it costs so much and hasn't gotten obsolete yet.

Piotyr said:

The only big thing that cable has a stranglehold on right now is sports programming, which is why it costs so much and hasn't gotten obsolete yet.

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And the fact that they use this as leverage to be your ISP (since their cable already goes to your house and all...).

--Patrick

Piotyr said:

The only big thing that cable has a stranglehold on right now is sports programming, which is why it costs so much and hasn't gotten obsolete yet.

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I didn't go into detail but this is pretty much the reason why. Most cable companies get 70% of their money from sports networks.

I do not mourn for BB. They killed the Mom & Pop store that carried variety and had top flight service. BB was owned by a major video distribution company. To hear the owners of the older video stores, they were owned by the only video distribution company... But the parent company just heavily inflated the rates for independent rental video.

Many a night in my teens, my friends and I would go to blockbuster to find movies for the weekend. I remember we always laughed at the box for the Amityville Horror because for some reason the box art had been cut strangely so that it read "The Amityville Ho." But to be honest, my earliest rental memories come from the local Skaggs Alpha Beta, which rented nintendo cartridges for 50 cents a night. That was freakin' mecca.

I still have my employee number memorised.

The last store we had around here shut down about 2 years ago. I still prefer BB to Redbox b/c it was nice to jump over to classics/foreign/whatever to find something to watch. Though my Redbox rentals are few and far between.

I see BB closing as a sign for the coming disappearance of actual physical media. I can't imagine that DVDs/CDs/Bluray are going to hang on for much longer.

I think I still have my Champion's Card for winning the Blockbuster Video Game Challenge in 1994.

drawn_inward said:

I see BB closing as a sign for the coming disappearance of actual physical media. I can't imagine that DVDs/CDs/Bluray are going to hang on for much longer.

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I'd be hard pressed to remember the last time I bought/loaded something from optical media. Or even burned my own.

Now, professionally, I have received media of such magnitude that it was delivered on its own 250 gig USB drive. Song libraries for radio broadcast. But that's not the same, naturally.

Well, guess that's one less card I have to keep in my wallet.

GasBandit said:

I have received media of such magnitude that it was delivered on its own 250 gig USB drive.

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Do you have to break them up and return them? Or do you get to keep them, cuz that would be awesome.

--Patrick

PatrThom said:

Do you have to break them up and return them? Or do you get to keep them, cuz that would be awesome.

--Patrick

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We get to keep them. Though we usually don't repurpose them. When we change automation systems (which we have done twice in the 10 years I've worked here), it's handy to have the original data in unprocessed form so that it can be reimported without it having already been through a different automation system's audio processing.

I remember when a local Blockbuster offered a free rental to members who bring in their Netflix address label. Since I'm the type to save things, I got over 100 rentals that summer.

GasBandit said:

We get to keep them. Though we usually don't repurpose them. When we change automation systems (which we have done twice in the 10 years I've worked here), it's handy to have the original data in unprocessed form so that it can be reimported without it having already been through a different automation system's audio processing.

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We get DNA/RNA sequencing data on external HDs (~1 TB) and we keep them for the exact same reason. We need space on our servers to crunch the data so we can't store all that locally.

I live in a suburb of a relatively large city, now my only option for going and renting a movie (and you know what, sometimes that was a good time, I honestly miss going around and browsing) is to cross the fucking North Saskatchewan and hit up Hollywood video, which might be the last remaining company open in the whole metro area.

If I had stayed in the north, the little town of 3000 people I used to patrol, they still have an independent mom and pop shop that's been open as long as I can remember.

There will be a market for stores that carry DVD and Bluray movies. Believe it or not, there are parts of the US that don't have high-speed internet.

Jay said:

I fear within the next 3-4 years, this will happen to cable as well.

Netflix. Steaming. This is where the money is at.

Fuck your cable packages, just give me WHAT I WANT

Click to expand...

If net neutrality goes away, we'll be getting a hot face full of the same garbage on the net.

If the US government does away with net neutrality, you guys better put all those guns to use.

Nothing surprises me when it comes to the US.

Jay said:

Nothing surprises me when it comes to the US.

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Our reputation precedes us.

--Patrick

PatrThom said:

Our reputation precedes us.

--Patrick

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I won't even go into the whole politics thing... but out of HUNDREDS of countries on this planet.... guess who's first to push this issue?

So yeah, I'm not surprised at all. Then again, Canada ain't that far behind with horrible government as well.

$$$ talks.

Hey... video stores are still doing pretty well. I go to my local Family Video all the time for games because Gamefly never stocks enough new releases. It's also great for getting foreign stuff.

I do miss the days of riding my bike down to BB to see what SNES (or later on) N64 games I could rent for the weekend. I'd also drool all over the cool PS1 games.

I remember always being so upset that they never had Game Boy games, though.

My town was too small to have a blockbuster. Our local video store had the redundant name of Sequel II video. I remember tooling around town for recyclables to get enough money to rent a movie(I grew up in Michigan where they have $0.10 deposits on all cans and bottles and you can redeem them at any store that sells that product).

AshburnerX said:

I go to my local Family Video all the time

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They seem to be the only chain still active that I notice.

Bowielee said:

Our local video store had the redundant name of Sequel II video.

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If you're ever back in SE Michigan, Thomas Video is where you want to go. They're like a comic book store, but for video.

--Patrick

GasBandit said:

Many a night in my teens, my friends and I would go to blockbuster to find movies for the weekend. I remember we always laughed at the box for the Amityville Horror because for some reason the box art had been cut strangely so that it read "The Amityville Ho." But to be honest, my earliest rental memories come from the local Skaggs Alpha Beta, which rented nintendo cartridges for 50 cents a night. That was freakin' mecca.

Click to expand...

oh wow I remember renting nintendo games in the local grocery store with my grandmother....that brings me back.

Frank said:

I live in a suburb of a relatively large city, now my only option for going and renting a movie (and you know what, sometimes that was a good time, I honestly miss going around and browsing) is to cross the fucking North Saskatchewan and hit up Hollywood video, which might be the last remaining company open in the whole metro area.

If I had stayed in the north, the little town of 3000 people I used to patrol, they still have an independent mom and pop shop that's been open as long as I can remember.

Click to expand...

Wouldn't the Movie Studio on 144 be closer? Like... a lot closer?

Oh dang, I forgot about the small rental spots in some grocery stores growing up. Most of the time it was the best place to find a game, because at least here, nobody seemed to use them as much as BB/Hollywood Video.

Chad Sexington said:

Wouldn't the Movie Studio on 144 be closer? Like... a lot closer?

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Movie Studio! That was the name. I couldn't remember. The last one I'd been to was the one next to Remedy and that was years ago.

Frank said:

Movie Studio! That was the name. I couldn't remember. The last one I'd been to was the one next to Remedy and that was years ago.

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That one's still there, too, and it seems to do good business. I walk past it every day (I work at the university and live off Whyte).

I wonder if we will see a resurgence of the mom and pop stores now that the big guys are out of the game. Particularly for video games as, up here anyway, any of the mail in services suck fat ass.

Or I wonder if the psn and live would start offering rentals ever, with the option of buying at the end. I could see psn doing so especially with it's download while you play ability the ps4 is touting.

As far as I can remember, PSN does have renting.

There's a Jumbo Video operating down the street from me, but they don't rent games anymore. I asked why and they said they're just too expensive. For one, too expensive just to obtain. Two, they're usually the first thing thieves grab for. Three, they're the most common to be late or never even returned, so no profit from multiple rentals.

Hell, all that was the same when I used to work for Blockbuster myself. It was a thief's #1 target and we'd be lucky if the ones that rented ever came back on time, let alone at all. It's no wonder they were $10 for a week.[DOUBLEPOST=1383863493,1383863461][/DOUBLEPOST]

Frank said:

As far as I can remember, PSN does have renting.

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Well...sort of. You get 1-hour trials of the full game.

Oh, I meant movies.

And my skim reading of Far's post meant I missed that he was talking about game rentals.

That will never happen, unless there's a massive paradigm shift.

Yeah just a pipe dream really but a man can dream. I don't imagine if they did something akin to this that it would be cheap either.

But yes they do currently offer fairly cheap rentals for movies and if you are a plus member hour long full game trials.

Aren't redboxes renting games now? Game rental almost makes more sense for the redbox system as gamers are wayyy more interested in new releases, and that makes the system easier for redbox.

Necronic said:

Aren't redboxes renting games now? Game rental almost makes more sense for the redbox system as gamers are wayyy more interested in new releases, and that makes the system easier for redbox.

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plus their pricing model doesn't care when you return the game.

I don't use Redbox often, but I find it's a nice supplement to Netflix.

Necronic said:

Aren't redboxes renting games now? Game rental almost makes more sense for the redbox system as gamers are wayyy more interested in new releases, and that makes the system easier for redbox.

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They are. My local ones just have god awful selection and very few copies of each. And I doubt based on the size of the machine they will ever expand their selection past triple A titles.

Far said:

They are. My local ones just have god awful selection and very few copies of each. And I doubt based on the size of the machine they will ever expand their selection past triple A titles.

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Shit, the one in the Safeway I shop at doesn't even have AAA games. There were a couple of Wii games and an old Call of Duty.

I think the ones near me have assassins creed 3, call of duty world at war for some reason, 2 or 3 various sports games and silent hill revelations. Ps3 had a copy of battlefield 4 last night too. The wii portion has just dance 3 and 4 and Mario and Sonic at the Olympics.

I'm fortunate to find good stuff at Redboxes, though for PS3 (COD Black Ops 2, God of War Ascension). I've found more AAA titles for PS3 than Xbox in my area (GTA5 needs 2 disc rentals for Xbox), though maybe there are more Xbox customers and less demand for PS3. I've driven 20 miles to get a title before (The Last of Us). Finished Call of Duty Ghosts in one day and Beyond: Two Souls in two (without trying to 100% any of them).

I may just rent Beyond: Two Souls or get it when it's really cheap used.