sMoRTy71.com: Free trial to Gamefly

Free trial to Gamefly
When I was on GameSpot on Friday, I saw a promo for a free 21-day trial to Gamefly.com. I had been curious as to how the service worked, so I decided to check it out.

Gamefly is basically Netflix for games. You pay $21 per month and you can check out up to 2 games (from any combination of game consoles) at a time. There are no due dates or late fees and Gamefly pays the postage on the games both ways.

I signed up Friday and requested Burnout 3:Takedown and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 for Xbox. I got an e-mail Friday evening saying that both of my games have shipped and should be here early in the week.

And just like Netflix, if I return one game, Gamefly will automatically sent me the next game that I have saved in my "GameQ." You can even place games that haven't been released yet in your Q.

While the service seems cool so far, there are a couple of downsides that I can see:

1. You are without a game for 5 or 6 days between check outs -- For example, if it takes 3 days for the game to get back to Gamefly and then another 3 days to reach me, then I've missed 1/5 of the month that I could have been gaming.

2. Game availability is impossible to predict -- Because there are no due dates, you could run into a situation where all copies of a game are checked out and you will have no idea of when you can expect to receive a copy. Some games on the site have a "Short Wait" icon next to them which means that they are not available right now.

One feature that I may take advantage of during my trial is the "Keep it" feature. If you like a game, you can select "Keep it" and they will charge you a preplayed price (and they'll mail you the box and manual). Burnout 3: Takedown, which I really want to buy, is only $39.99. So I may pick it up before my trial runs out.