Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

I’ve been a member of GameznFlix for just a few months now. I used to rent one game at a time from GameFly ($15/month) and one movie at a time from Netflix ($10/month). I left GameFly because it just took too long for their Los Angeles distribution center to receive a game from me on the East Coast and then ship one back. I left Netflix because GameznFlix offers movies as well as video games and I felt it would be overkill to have both subscriptions. When CAG posted a promotional code to get 3 out at a time for $13/month, I jumped at the chance to try it. Here’s my review.

Unbeatable Price
GameFly’s 1-game plan is $14.95 (2 for $21.95). Netflix’s 1-movie plan is $9.99 (2 for $14.95). GameznFlix had a 3-game/DVD/Blu-Ray/HD-DVD rental plan for a $12.95 promotional rate. With $25 a month for one game and one movie rental at a time from GameFly and Netflix versus $13, it’s not hard to see the appeal of GameznFlix.

Quick Shipping
My biggest problem with GameFly was shipping time. I get items very quickly from GameznFlix. Had GameFly’s shipping been fast, I would very likely have stuck with them. (Note: a new GameFly shipping center serving several states is now online in Pittsburgh, PA, but my home state is not among them yet.) CAG’s review of GzF noted several distribution centers:
Boston, MA
Washington DC
Orlando, FL
Franklin, KY
Dallas, TX
Sterling, CO
Sacramento, CA
Seattle, WA
Los Angeles, CA
Chicago, IL

Rent-To-Own? Don’t Subscribe Here.
This is not the service for you if you want to rent-to-own. Their game prices are identical to full retail, and they lack GameFly’s credit system that gives you a minor discount based on how long you are a member. This is easily seen the first time you log in, and I subscribed to GameznFlix for the sole purpose of renting, not owning, so I don’t mind this setup.

Primitive Website
GameznFlix’s website is inexcusably primitive. There are so many ways it could be better, and I’m not talking about a navigation redesign, I’m talking about the most basic needs of the end user.

First, the search results, browsing pages, and queue don’t tell you what media format something is in. Is “Spider-Man 2″ on the queue a DVD or a video game? You can’t tell. Some folks put FEAR for the PS3 on their queue in anticipation of its release, leading them to recieve a DVD of trailers instead. Looking at the page you still can’t tell what format it is in. The detail page for an item does tell you what something is, but it’s often faster to look at the picture to understand what it is. This, of course, didn’t work for the aforementioned FEAR problem — the image plainly shows a PS3 box shot.

Speaking of the item detail pages, the descriptions are generally very poor. You don’t know what extra features there are and you frequently have to guess if it’s the version you want (for example, widescreen or pan and scan) just based on the not-so-hot thumbnail.

The queue isn’t a queue, it’s a cloud. And it’s a forgetful cloud at that. They sometimes forget what they sent me, with one of the three titles not showing up, and occasionally it will thoroughly get confused and send a fourth title out instead of three. They give you whatever they feel like giving you, whenever they feel like it. The queue shows a little bar next to each item telling you how likely it is you’ll get that item next. The bar, though, is still pretty much useless. You might get the item with the big bar, or you might get something at the bottom of the list with a tiny bar.

This has ramifications if you’re sharing the service with someone else. Let’s say your spouse wants to see a movie and doesn’t see it for months because their queue system decides not to send it to you. You can’t choose how many of what kind of item you get at a time, and you can’t specify separate sub-queues like you can on Netflix. This is starting to become a problem for me.

Doesn’t Play Well With Others
One of the nice things I used to be able to do with game rentals was rent a game, play it online with friends, and then return it when I was done, and possibly buy it later. With the cloud system, I can never plan what title I get next, or even what the second choice is. This can be a big downside if you’re planning on trying to rent games together with friends to try them out.

The Selection: Not So Hot
It can take them a while to get a game in stock, and the wacky queue system keeps you from knowing what kind of “wait” you have to get a game they may or may not have enough of.

Maybe We Ordered It. Maybe We Didn’t.
This leads me to their policy on ordering games. If you add a game to your queue that they don’t have yet, they might tag it as “On Order” or “Not Yet Ordered”. It turns out that this isn’t entirely true. According to a conversation a friend had with their support staff, games that haven’t even been ordered yet are often listed that way, and when enough people put it on their queue they will order it.

The PSP: Unsupported
The recent news about them completely ditching the PSP makes sense when I noticed almost every PSP game I wanted either was tagged as on order or wasn’t yet purchased. I’m disappointed to see their PSP support go away,

The Verdict?
Price and ship time were the driving forces for me going with GameznFlix, but the queue system and lack of PSP support have become major downsides to keeping the service. Once GameFly’s new distribution center starts consistently serving my area, their monthly fee will be more palatable if turnaround times stay short. But until then, I’m able to look the other way by paying far less money for both movie and game rental service combined.

See also:
GameznFlix Drops All PSP Titles
GameFly’s Pittsburgh Distribution Center Is Live
A CAG’s Review of GameznFlix