GameFly Addresses Upcoming Netflix Competition by Essentially Ignoring it

Hataz gonna hate.

I haz both services..

Looking for first good way to jump off the Gamefly ship. Keeping and eye on this new netflix gaming stuff.

Last paragraph made me laugh pretty hard.

@Alex: It's all good bro, ignore the haters. I like you plenty

@jasondesante: Both those comments were in this forum. The guy asking me to be fired was the one whose comment started this whole chain, which, IIRC, you specifically agreed with. I do recall that you said you were trying to approach me with respect, which I appreciate. The douchebag comment was something YukoAkusho specifically said earlier, which is why I mentioned it there. I was trying to lump two separate discussions into one, so my bad on that front. That said, you can't say 'NO ONE' is doing that, because two of the people you've been talking to in this thread did exactly those things.

Can we end this on a truce? I don't think you and I are ever going to see eye-to-eye on how I do things. I have no intention of changing the core style of my writing--I am, and have always been a sarcastic person, and by my dying breath, I will bring dat snark. As I said, I am open to thoughtful criticism and am more than willing to talk things out with users who have a problem with what I do, and I'm not above making adjustments based on overall feedback from the audience. But I need that to be a respectful, thoughtful conversation. I think the issue I had with you ultimately came by proxy of things other people were saying in this thread, and it all got lumped together. Sometimes it's best not to try and join the chorus when the chorus is a bunch of shouty, angry people, you know?

@Alex: You have every right to do what you do, and you never are a mean person, you just add a lot of color to explaining a situation. It has been hard for me to understand that because of those sometimes moments. The way you write stuff is definitely unique, and honestly after hearing you explain some of it, and trying hard to think about your point of view, I can do nothing but respect. I'm not in a place to influence you, not convincingly, and you have every right to write an article about Jason DeSante the most unsucessful musician ever and just tear it apart with all your skills. So, respectful truce?

"splitting out their business into two distinct businesses that each do half of the thing the original business already did. Not that any company would be so frivolous in its business planning to act with such rash and bizarre behavior. That would just be suicidal."

hahahahah, I get it... love the sarcasm. Fantastic.

Netflix is really messing this up here. I thought the idea was to add more services in one bundle.

Much like splitting up a Swiss Army Knife, I like the idea of having a spoon with my knife... because I can.

but a Swiss Army Knife without a blade and just a spoon?... what's the point?

Qwikflix is a good name. Netster sounds like an amazingly outdated router.

Adding to my other post. I wonder if Netflix can also beat Gamefly's holiday shipping. For me Gamefly has taken "no mail on holidays" into consideration. There were many times they shipped me games 3-4 days before it actualy released because the game's actual release was close to a holiday.

@Chop: Alex is so over the top that he should be funny.

It's a medical mystery why he isn't.

@YukoAsho: @jasondesante: Let me put this another way, so we can just end this topic and get back to the subject that actually started this entire topic.

I learned a strong lesson a long time ago in this business. If you try to please everybody, you end up pleasing nobody. The way I write is my voice, my personality. I could no sooner completely change that voice than I could hack off one of my own limbs. It's me. You are, in effect, asking me to be someone else other than me. I don't do that, because that wouldn't be true to the idea of what Giant Bomb is, which is a group of guys being themselves while also covering the game industry. That extends to the rest of Whiskey Media as well.

It's nice that suddenly you guys think you're the kings of reason, especially after comments along the lines of "Alex should be fucking fired" and pathetic namecalling like "Alex 'king douchebag' Navarro" or whatever the hell it was you wrote. That's not useful feedback to anyone, it's bitchy, and precisely as snarky and mean-spirited as you claim me to be.

Simple feedback like "I wish you pointed out more specific facts" or "I wish there was a little less snark here and there" is stuff I can absolutely take to heart. I do listen when someone has a reasonable point. Coming at me insults blazing is not a good way to get anyone's attention. It's precisely as immature and dickish as you make me out to be.

Hey, Alex! You suck!

J/k <3 Alex is my favorite Whiskey personality just behind Rorie.

I'm Canadian and I know we'll never be able to have a proper mail rental service as our postal service is seven different kinds of ass. So yay for everyone that can take advantage of this?

@Alex said:

@jasondesante: The people who run this website are well aware of the way I write articles. If they had an issue with it, I'm fairly certain it would have been brought to my attention long ago. As it is, nothing of the sort has been said to me.

And while you can sit here and point to some people who simply don't dig my style--I won't sit here and pretend they don't exist--I can point to as many, if not more who happen to enjoy what I do. Sorry you don't enjoy it, but I'm actually quite fond of the way I do things, and it seems like many of our users are as well. I do, in fact, take pride in my work. I'm quite proud of my writings, this article included. I'm not going anywhere, and I'm not going to completely change the way I do things because a few people opt to bitch up a storm. So, hey, that's pretty much that.

I find Mr. Desante to be quite reasonable. Your articles of late aren't so much meant to inform as to inflame. You put your dull, witless brand of "humor" ahead of the information, and effectively keep the reader from coming up with their own opinions based on the article. Increasingly, you are more and more mean-spirited and spiteful, taking pleasure only in the mocking of others. Reminds me of another troll, really.

I stopped using Gamespot much after Gerstmann-gate because I thought I could find more integrity here. However, it's becoming more and more apparent that I was woefully mistaken in that assessment. It's pretty obvious why you've turned a tin ear to rational detractors. It's the same reason anything of any entertainment value is being hidden behind the paywall. It's because Giant Bomb is increasingly showing that it cannot exist beyond the cult of personality that has developed around you, Jeff, Ryan, Brad and Vinny.

What jasondesante and I are saying aren't slamming you for the hell of it. Were that the case, he and I would have likely found another place to call home. Lord knows there are no small number of options out there in the vast series of tubes that is the Internet. No, we speak our minds because we want the site bettered. The example he brings with 1up is absolutely on the dot. When people develop an echo chamber around them and only allow mindless praise to enter, nothing good will ever come of it.

Perhaps an echo chamber of mindless praise is just what you want, and if that's the case, feel free to say so. However, to assume that people offering criticism are somehow just doing it out of spite, or just "bitching," is the height of myopia. There are legitimate improvements that can be made to your writing; less snark, more facts, perhaps being a tad bit less mean-spirited overall. I personally would like to see you take these suggestions to heart instead of simply brushing them aside because someone dares to say something other than "OMG AWSUM ALEX!"

@jasondesante

Hey, if no one else, know that I'm paying attention and agreeing fully with you. Not everyone here has blindly fallen in line with the personality cult.

I like Alex's headlines. This article is informative.

You know what I like? Multiple voices in my news stream. I like that everyone in Whiskey Media writes their own way, and you can pretty much tell who it is without reading the name. And if for some reason I didn't like this one guy, I'd maybe not read those articles.

Back to the topic. Here in the UK, we still have Blockbuster. I haven't used a service of their's since the 90s.

It's funny. The day they announce the price hike their stock jumped to over $300 a share. Yesterday it closed at $143. If they hadn't done anything; no price hike, no changes in services, no splitting the company, shares would probably still be around $250 which is what they were before this whole escapade began. The bright side is now is the perfect time to invest if you are interested in the company. They still (in spite of all this) have very few worthwhile competitors.

Fantastic article! My only issue: the subhead "GameFly releases a statement emphasizing the fact that the company still exists, and is good at things" seems to accidentally imply that GameFly being good at things is a fact. THAT IS NOT A FACT. GAMEFLY IS THE WORST THING IN THE WORLD.

@TwistedGamer said:

@jasondesante said:

@Alex:

Alex, I want to voice my concern with as much respect as possible, and trying as hard as I can to be factual and only point out specifics. You in response say I am bitching up a storm.

"I'm not going anywhere, and I'm not going to completely change the way I do things because a few people opt to bitch up a storm."

You are rubbing it in my face the fact you are "not going anywhere". keep up the good work.

well you kinda are "bitching up a storm"

Ain't no understatement too either. Drama Llama's up in here.

@jasondesante said:

@Alex:

Alex, I want to voice my concern with as much respect as possible, and trying as hard as I can to be factual and only point out specifics. You in response say I am bitching up a storm.

"I'm not going anywhere, and I'm not going to completely change the way I do things because a few people opt to bitch up a storm."

You are rubbing it in my face the fact you are "not going anywhere". keep up the good work.

well you kinda are "bitching up a storm"

Well, I like Alex.

And I don't like Gamefly. I don't have a long list of games I want to play, and when I had Gamefly, it would only send me games on the bottom of that list. While I only use the streaming part of Netflix, if Qwikster can offer me games quickly, I may give it a try.

@Alex:

Alex, I want to voice my concern with as much respect as possible, and trying as hard as I can to be factual and only point out specifics. You in response say I am bitching up a storm.

"I'm not going anywhere, and I'm not going to completely change the way I do things because a few people opt to bitch up a storm."

You are rubbing it in my face the fact you are "not going anywhere". keep up the good work.

To the @ replies above:

LOL at the guy 2 comments above. Ever watch the movie Idiocracy?

My "bitching" in this comment is the exact same type of "bitching" the main character in the movie Idiocracy was doing. Calm rational english trying to get a point across, and the response is stupid fag stop bitching.

The end of the day I'm voicing my concern because I care about GB, to show disrespect to that is what..reverse psychology, what do you want from me? I used to love a site called 1up, but it slowly became crappy I don't know how but there were noticable mistakes in the writing all the time, and when I would ask in the comments to please edit their stuff properly or at least get me to fix the grammar and spelling errors, I would get non stop reply comments of people calling me an idiot and telling me to stop bitching.

as time passed 1up turned into crap . There was also a guy named Scott Sharkey who worked there who was just as much as a black hole of personality as Alex is, he ended up getting fired. But theres also Yahtzee that fast talking opinion filled one sided dude who says nothing but provocative statements meant to get a reaction. So I guess at the end of it all there is a place for that style of writing. 1up ended up turning to crap and I don't even bother going to the site anymore, all because of the quality of writing slowly becoming worse and worse, and the community slowly becoming worse and worse. I couldn't say an honest concern about how I wanted 1up to be more professional without getting 5 replies telling me to STFU. 1up ended up getting bought out twice over a few years and now remains a hollow shell of what used to be there.

I don't want GB's community to turn into a bunch of people that don't care about quality and just yell STFU FAG STOP BITCHIN. I especially don't want the staff of GB to be participating in the ridiculing of people who simply want the professionals to act like professionals.

Maybe I'm wrong for voicing any concern at all whether or not I believed it to matter, but you took that bait and you decided to reply back.

This started with me writing many comments on many articles saying the same thing about how I thought you were not professional at all with your writing over the period of months from me discovering the site up until now, and it ended with you saying a few regular users of your website were bitching up a storm.

@jasondesante: The people who run this website are well aware of the way I write articles. If they had an issue with it, I'm fairly certain it would have been brought to my attention long ago. As it is, nothing of the sort has been said to me.

And while you can sit here and point to some people who simply don't dig my style--I won't sit here and pretend they don't exist--I can point to as many, if not more who happen to enjoy what I do. Sorry you don't enjoy it, but I'm actually quite fond of the way I do things, and it seems like many of our users are as well. I do, in fact, take pride in my work. I'm quite proud of my writings, this article included. I'm not going anywhere, and I'm not going to completely change the way I do things because a few people opt to bitch up a storm. So, hey, that's pretty much that.

I'm happy with my Gamefly account and my Netflix Streaming-only service. I will never be interested in Quickster. So, for me at least, Gamefly wins.

I have had gamefly three times now, and every time I cancel for the same reason (Waiting ages for games on my Q, or settling for something I put up there to fill the space). I guess I'm just stupid for continuing to sign up.

I had gamefly for a while, my issue with them was I would always get something 13 down my list, and it almost always would be a DS or Wii game. The only way for me to actually get PS3 games from them was to take everything that wasn't a PS3 game off my list completely. Then the bastards almost charged me for a game when I canceled. Magically after writing an angry email saying that my cancellation was temporary because of school the missing game was "found". ( I ended up never going back to them, though it was unintentional).

we will see how it is. gamefly shouldn't be that nervous about a new service. i've heard some good and bad thing about gamefly.

@Mr402 said:

Never had a problem with Gamefly. In fact I just bougtht Gears 3 from them for 40 bucks with a used price discount and a coupon. I look at Gamefly more as a buyers club then a rental service. If Qwikster cant match those deals I'm not going any where.

^ This, ive had Gamefly for 2 years. I keep the games i want in my Q. Every single new title that has released was shipped days before its release date. So i either get it in the mail on release or a day after release. Dead Island did not release until the 6th in America. Gamefly shipped out Dead Island to me on the 3rd. Gears of War 3 was shipped out to me a day before its actual release. It has been like this for every release for me. Its silly for people to think they're going to get their game adding it in the Q on release date. When hundreds upon hundreds of other people (Like me) had it in their Q for months far before release.

Never had a problem with Gamefly. In fact I just bougtht Gears 3 from them for 40 bucks with a used price discount and a coupon. I look at Gamefly more as a buyers club then a rental service. If Qwikster cant match those deals I'm not going any where.

I remember paying for 2 months of Gamefly...not a good decision, they have a shipping center about 45 minutes from here yet it takes at least a week to get a game.

If Netflix ends up with a good game library and the fees aren't too much, I'm on board. GameFly is painfully slow.

But hey, hopefully competition will do them some good.

I've never seen a brand go to shit faster than Netflix.

A decade building the brand, and a matter of weeks to drag it through the mud.

@jasondesante: Agreed entirely. I wanna like Giant Bomb, I do. However, with more and more of the good stuff hidden behind the paywall and the text on the site becoming increasingly unbearable to read (especially by Alex "Immature Douche" Navarro), it makes me wonder why I even come to the site, and makes the concept of $50/year a bitter pill.

I think Quickflix is a better name. You need to get royalties for that idea.

Great article, btw. While there appears to be whiners about it in these comments I find the whole thing asinine too and I can't wait to see how this all plays out.

It will either be Netflix changes it mind, or Gamefly suddenly has a DEAL YOU CANT LIVE WITHOUT. It will be entertaining either way.

@Alex: Job, role, position. You understood what I meant.

It is the role of the comments section to provide the emotionally charged provocative opinions. My opinion of journalism is that I expect it to go beyond the scope of Fox News style in your face emotional manipulation, sorry.

Is that proper enough english? or am I just writing pointless banter?

I like Giant Bomb and I want more people to come to this site, but this type of writing is not something I want to read. It's like limiting the most appealing videos to only the paid subscribers (people who already know how cool giant bomb is). You want to attract new users by showing off what makes Giant Bomb unique , but you can't because all the unique stuff is fenced off to subscribers!

Alex writes his articles because it is apparently his career or something. I write this comment because I want someone to seriously reconsider the professionalism and pride this man takes in his work.

I know you are not an asshole Alex, but first impressions go a long way and if you are basically encouraging users to visit the site less often from your work, there is a problem. Bottom line my opinion is you will not attract as many new users to continue reading Giant Bomb with an average Alex Navarro article as you will with any random Jeff, Patrick, Vinny, or Brad written article.

I'm only voicing such a strong opinion right now because every time I have stopped myself from reading an article because I can't stand the tone it was written in, it was also coincidentally written by Alex.

At the end of the day this is a bigger deal to Alex than it is to me. It is what he has chosen to do for his life, and a noticable amount of people have developed a distaste for his work, have reasons to back it up, and thats gotta hurt. Having to lie to your boss, or cover up fans trying to voice their opinions has got to suck. Lets see what happens. You can use your magical admin powers and secretly delete my comments in an effort to make sure your boss doesn't see the genuine concerns of fans. I encourage it, why dont you just delete my whole account Alex? It will ensure you won't hear from me ever again. Then you can enjoy the benefits of a wonderful job someone else deserves.

Not sure why this article is associated with Disaster Day of Crisis, but okay.

And Alex, keep doing what you do. You're the best.

@BlatantNinja23: Oh trust me, I do. I do aaaall the little tricks: Sending back a game RIGHT before another comes out so it arrives a day before release, "keeping" my game the day before release so that it immediately opens a slot, back when I had more money, I used to actually upgrade to 2 games at once the day before a big release and besides that last one, NONE of them work. And if I'm off by even a day I'm screwed because somehow they don't have enough supply to keep up with demand.

Maybe Qwikster will actually meet the game demand for rentals new or not unlike GameFly.

How do we really expect them to respond though. At this point we know nothing of Netflix's (ahem, Qwickster's) video game service. How comprehensive will it be? Will it be an additional $3 a month or an additional $15 a month to subscribers. None of those questions are answered so can you really expect Gamefly to be afraid yet?

Gamefly needs to lower their prices.

@Milkman said:

@Pessimisten said:

Just fucking fire Alex already..

God fucking damn it but is there a shittier writer on any of the most shittiest look-at-this-fucking-headline-now-give-me-a-quick-click-because-i'm-a-filthy-whore-blogs? Fuck sake Alex, all you do is pick useless stories or stuff that should just be a short heads up, then spend an awful lot of effort on conveying just how little you care. Do you also sit down and stare at wall for long periods of time just so that you can bemoan how boring it is all the while?

Alex,

Look at your own headlines for once? Do you see how absolutely and to an enormous fault they are exactly the same boring attempt to catch the attention of the hoards of 15-25 year old internet whiners that are just foaming at the mouth to bitch about the next big thing while using the oh so splendid, clever and humorous form of expression called sarcasm?(<- see, its not funny or witty) And at the same time conveying next to nothing in form of information?

In your next article, add a poll and ask how many people actually read your walls of tired, dull and mean spirited text and how many just click to look at your silly captions or any other "shenanigans" you might conjure up?

Grow up and take some pride in your work or relocate to another site Alex, it seriously just annoys me and makes me less likely to come to the site when i see your headlines pop up. And I've seen that same opinion expressed by others any time I've actually bothered to click on your articles and then scrolled over the comments.

Somebody get this freak a tissue. And a gun.

Seriously, speaking of hyperventilating into a paper bag. You want another boring-as-dishwater news service there's thousands out there. I'm sure CNN or Forbes could accommodate your need for "serious journalism." Have fun with that.

Quoting trolls will get you comments deleted as well guys. If you must just @comment.

As far as quality of Alex's writing, I haven't really thought about it. The people claiming he is overly snarky may have a point.

I don't really pay attention to subheadlines, where Alex does his real yeoman's work, so I'm usually deep into an article before I read something that could only be written by Alex and scroll to the top to check the byline. I've yet to be wrong.

I love you, Alex.

You out did yourself this time, Alex!

For me, it will all come down to availability. I've been a Gamefly subscriber for several years now, and the one thing that's really anything is that unless a game is several years old, it's availability is always, at best, "low". So you can easily spend several days with nothing shipped, sometimes even a week. That's just disgraceful. If Netflix improves on this, Gamefly is done for...

Been a member of gamefly for the longest time now. I just used to keep it feature to buy LA Noire 30 bucks, i got the game box in pristine condition a few days afterwards. A few years back i remember buying Fallout 3 for 40 dollars on it's release week by using the keep it feature. I don't think this Qwikster service will be anything like that and not having Handheld options could be a deal breaker.

Only thing i can hope from this is that a bunch of overzealous members jump ship to try Qwikster and force Gamefly to bring their prices down. Netflix has been slowly swirling down the tubes for a while now, so i'm wary of any new service they put out. Instant streaming still doesn't have the type of selection i would like.

@Pessimisten: If I wanted to read a bland, flavorless press release, there are dozens of other sites for that. You probably know that as well. If that is what you want then this is not the place for you. No amount of your whining is going to change this. Alex has always been Alex, and Alex will continue to always be Alex. He doesn't write these articles to seek your approval or that of the parties that are addressed in them. He is honest to a fault, says the things that people are thinking but are too diplomatic to actually say, and actually writes quite well in case you failed to notice in your fit of blind rage. Keep it up though, posts like yours keep things entertaining.

@Alex: Great article. Haters gonna hate!

I just stream my movies through Amazon's service anyway. Sorry Netflix!

@Cyrisaurus said:

I've had GameFly for 4 years now. I can essentially buy new games for $40 or less (even if I'm the first person to receive that copy of a game, I still get the used price) with the bonuses I've gotten after being a member for a year.

It sucks that I can't just drop the service for one month every now and then and then get back on board without losing my rewards.

GameFly should buy, or create a competitor to OnLive. GameFly owns Shacknews, but Shacknews hasn't sold out, because GameFly just wants you to rent games, not hawk you ads.

Still appreciate the write-up Alex, try not to listen to the others. I'm sure you've developed a thick-skin already, for you are a public servant of the inter-webs. But none-the-less thought i'd say good job. I found i read the article even though none of it relates to me because the style was so engaging.

....wow... i wish CGW/GFW still existed so i could submit this comment thread to 'heros of the web'.