It has been announced that the rest of the Blockbuster locations still in operation are to be shut down. I remember going to the local Blockbuster alot as a kid. Between the family movie nights and the sleepovers and video games. I remember the Kiosks they had for Pokemon Snap and Pokemon Stadium. What are your memories of Blockbuster?

Darn Netflix!

I remember trying Virtual Boy at Blockbuster. I also remember the kiosks and renting Genesis games after school on Fridays.

I rented my share of Blockbuster videos and games. But my fondest memories of renting game or movie titles lie with the mom and pop businesses that used to exist here locally.

Not surprising. Blockbuster sucked ass for a while now, even before Netflix became popular. They jacked up the prices of their rentals, and it costs as much to rent even one movie as it does for Netflix's monthly price of renting all the movies you want.

It seemed like Blockbuster tried to keep up with the competition by offering their own rental service, but their service is just as crappy as ever, and their partnership with Dish didn't help them at all.

Honestly, I think Blockbuster should have taken notes from Netflix by offering a service that's just as user friendly, and with the same type of fees and everything. However, the advantage they could have for that is to allow rentals from their online services, and have you pickup that movie the same day depending on weather your local Blockbuster carries it or not. I believe that would have been something to keep Blockbuster in business, and give Netflix some competition.

But as it stands, Blockbuster just stick to their same shitty services. Yes, it is sad to see them go, but with the way they were falling out of date with the video rental market and still charge the same awful prices, then they deserve to go out of business. I know that sounds harsh, but they had this coming for a LOONNGG time.

I feel sorry for those who are out of a job at Blockbuster.

I'm surprised there's locations around at all. I haven't seen an active one in over 2 years. Really odd though because my GF said they opened one up about 3 years ago that was only open for less than a year. With the business on the decline I'm surprised they commissioned new locations so late in the game.

In the end I can't feel too sorry for Blockbuster, they killed off plenty of privately owned rental shops.

vkimo wrote :
In the end I can't feel too sorry for Blockbuster, they killed off plenty of privately owned rental shops.
-end quote

Exactly. It's dog-eat-dog, even for the big guys. They're just suffering the same fate that was inflicted by them on their early competitors.

Ok this is gonna sound silly, but my favorite memory of Blockbuster was going to a John Cena signing at one in 2005 the day before WM21.

I'm not a John Cena fan myself, but it's still pretty neat you went to see him in person.

Vaporman87 wrote :
But my fondest memories of renting game or movie titles lie with the mom and pop businesses that used to exist here locally.
-end quote

vkimo wrote :
In the end I can't feel too sorry for Blockbuster, they killed off plenty of privately owned rental shops.
-end quote

Vaporman87 wrote :
They're just suffering the same fate that was inflicted by them on their early competitors.
-end quote

Thanks guys. I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way.  Good riddance.

shakin steak wrote :
Thanks guys. I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way.  Good riddance.
-end quote

Yup. That's just the way it works in a capitalist system. And it seems that businesses coming and going is increasing in speed. The life cycle of businesses (especially those that rely on an online model) is likely to get shorter and shorter.

And while it will take a lot to bring down a giant like Walmart, it WILL happen. It's inevitable. Perhaps Target, Meijer, or some other chain will be responsible... but it WILL happen.

It happened to my favorite chain of department stores... Hills. I miss those stores, darnit!