I See No Point in Renting Video Games.

This happens every week. After I write a blog on something [that I'd like to think came out good] I wonder what I'm going to write for next week. And I have no idea and then out of nowhere, I get an idea. This week is no different.

I was driving in Eltingville and I saw that the Blockbuster on Amboy Road and Richmond Avenue was closing and they were trying to get rid of all their merchandise. Yesterday, I drove by and I saw that the store had been closed for good, and it was really weird to see all the shelves empty and whatnot. I am not surprised. Besides the parking lot being atrocious, I feel like no one wants to pay (when they could buy and own it) to rent a movie (when they could rent it for free from the library), or even rent it for cheaper on Netflix or just watch it online for free. The same goes for video games.

When I was a kid, I'd occasionally rent movies with my family that I had no desire of owning. When I got older, I'd go to to Blockbuster and I usually wouldn't want to rent movies, I'd rather buy and own them. Then, when I started playing video games, I'd rather buy the game instead of just rent it for a few days and have to bring it back. I'm not the type of person who would want to play a game for three days straight and then never look at it again; I play games on my own time, a little bit each time. Renting a game would not be convenient or fun for me, so I never did it.

I'll never forget, I wanted to play a Mortal Kombat game and I went to Blockbuster because it was more convenient for me to get to since it was right near the train and I didn't have a car at the time. And I was just in the mood to play Mortal Kombat--I have always loved playing that game and I just felt like fighting, not play a game with this long adventure, or play Guitar Hero, I just wanted to play Mortal Kombat. So I went to the store and asked if I could buy the game and they said they didn't have it, and they didn't even have the game to rent it. Ugh, I was so annoyed. So I wasn't able to fulfill my desire to play Mortal Kombat and I was sad.

I used to play Mortal Kombat when I was a kid with my brother, and yeah, I know, the whole "violence in video games" probably had an effect on me but I don't care. I love playing games for competition and Mortal Kombat basically a competition to the [virtual] death of the opponent. Among my favorite characters to use are: Sonya, Jade, Sindel, Kitana, Sheeva, Scorpion, Sub-Zero, and Johnny Cage. I played mostly Mortal Kombat on Sega Genesis, the Mortal Kombat Trilogy on N64 and Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance on PS2. I hardly remember the gameplay because I have played the game at all in at least three years, but I remember playing it and becoming determined to beat the boss, and enter the codes for the cool fatalities.

So, I'm not surprised that Blockbuster has gone away. I think it's only a matter of time before the whole company shuts down due to competition (Best Buy, Gamestop, Internet) and lack of items in stock. And the fact that you had to have the card or else you couldn't buy or rent anything was really annoying.

But now I wanna play Mortal Kombat. I gotta get that game somehow.