Just rented my first game.....

......and now I am feeling really guilty!!!!

I have quite a backlog of games I want to play and some of the games are on the backlog because I was unsure of their quality or whether I would like them when they were released. I decided for games that fell into this category I would rent them from LoveFilm just in case I didn't like them.

I have just received my 1st rental game, Majin And The Forsaken Kingdom and within 20 minutes have decided I like it. I am now feeling very guilty at playing this nice game without paying a penny to the devs and am close to sending it back and buying it instead.

So, what do you guys think about rentals? Am I worrying over nothing or do you think like me, that the devs should get their dues and I should pony up some cash?

It all depends on your personal situation. If you can afford to buy every game you like then I would personally buy it. But that doesn't mean that renting games as a way to save money is wrong. If you are only renting them for quality testing then consider buying it. In any case there's no need to feel guilty that you like something.

The "devs" typically don't get paid more due to more sales. At most, they get to keep their job. The publishers make more money, but they couldn't give a fuck less about you.

Do you feel guilty when you rent movies? How is this different?

Its a good point Legit, I am fortunate to be in a position where I can generally buy the games I want (I have over 120 PS3 titles and counting!), having played a further 40 minutes of Majin I have just ordered a copy for less that a tenner.

Insomniac, I agree with you to a point regarding the publishers, I don't feel any particular loyalty towards them on the whole but I guess they are a necessary evil, and I do quite like Namco/Bandai as they produce a lot of riskier games that the likes of EA and Activision dont.

As far as the comparison with movies, I believe its the case that rental companies pay a much higher price for their copies than those of Joe public so I feel less guilt at renting my movies. In fact I would be interested to know how much studios make from Rentals globally - I bet its a pretty penny!

Apparently the developer of Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom shut down in 2011. So you probably don't need to feel guilty about it.

I'd probably buy a game I rented and really liked at some point, both out of some feeling that I should own it and wanting to support the people behind it.

For me I guess the difference is just that I'm way more into games than movies. I'm not interested in what's going on behind the scenes there, and I can't think of many dev-equivalents (whatever that would be) from the film industry that I care about. I haven't rented a game or a movie in a long while though so I guess in practice it's not different.

Yeah, I saw that the devs had packed up which makes me feel more determined that games rentals are not for me. Like you I love games over movies and rightly or wrongly don't have the same cares for movie studios that I do for game studios.

Part of the problem is that there are just so many game to play now, and I like to savor the games I do buy. I would estimate I pick up 2 or 3 games a month at the moment and I tend to try and play them at least twice if possible. Even at the rate of 2-3 a month there are just loads of games I don't get around to. Majin, Afro Samurai and One Piece Pirates are the games on my rental list, as you can see, I am only picking up less popular games that may not warrant a purchase but that I liked the look of.

Some of the games I have bought that are less popular have been some of my faves so I might just go back to buying them to be honest. When I look at Enslaved, Vanquish, Lollipop Chainsaw, Asura Wrath, Shadows of the Damned and Binary Domain I have had a really great time with them and they were all relatively cheap to buy anyway.

I do wonder if my feelings would change if I were in a position where buying games was not financially an option, would I rent instead of missing out?.........that's a tough one!

The licence required to rent games is much higher than the cost of the game, Do you really think publishers would allow rentals if they didn't get a nice slice of the profits?

They have to buy those games in order to rent them to you in the first place. Also I believe they pay more then retail price, and for a service like gamefly or something, they have to get a ton of copies.

I was just going to say the exact same thing.

Also side note, I love buying a game from gamefly the day its released, it's already 10 bucks cheaper.

@lovespuds: Good job on stealing,.. thief..

There's no reason to feel bad about it. The people involved presumably understood the law when they decided to produce a game in the first place.

This is why piracy and used game sales are not analogous.

I tried looking for some information on what an outfit like GameFly might pay for a copy of a game and cannot find any solid evidence to suggest that they do pay more than the average consumer for their copies. I assumed they would pay more, but even then,surely a developer would make more if 20 people went and bought their game instead of 1 company buying a copy and renting it to 20 customers?

On a side note, Majin is a nice game if anyone is interested - having a good time with it but have just stopped playing. Will wait until my copy turns up in the post.

I finished MGS 1 as a rental.

Ahhh the good old days. Renting was all the rage back then when i was too young to have money.

Also look at it like this, i used to rent a lot of xbox one (THE ORIGINAL XBOX. FUCK YOU MICROSOFT I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO ELABORATE) ..ahem anyway, about 80 percent of those games i would have never played otherwise, and about a further 10 percent i would have never bought as a result of enjoying them, or bought future titles in the franchise. You shouldn't really feel guilty, it's not like you pirated the game on day one.

I Still have Gamefly. No shame.

That reminds me I should send back Driv3r....