Topic: Going to the video store

Random topic but with all this current downtime at home using streaming services and watching more TV and movies than I had in years with all the content right just a click or two away, I got thinking about one of the great pastimes of yesteryear: going to the video store and the experience as a whole.

In what used to be more or less a weekly occurrence for me, come Friday or Saturday night it was off to the video store to hire some VHS tapes (later DVDs..) - new release or weekly, as well as renting Super Nintendo games, then later N64, PlayStation, Gamecube or Xbox games. And trying to fit as many items into whatever package deal the store had running at the time, with it being a weekly balancing act to get the mix just right.

But it wasn't just the end result of watching a movie or playing a game that made it special - it was the overall experience that I remember fondly.

Heading to the store, navigating around the shelves, spending time pondering 'this or that?', debating (arguing?) with siblings, shelling out on overpriced snacks at the store which could have been purchased elsewhere for a third of the price, strolling into the adult section as a kid for a sneaky look, picking up a copy of the store's flyer or new catalogue containing upcoming releases, and the excitement at getting the videos/games home. And going back even further, arguing with siblings over who was going to watch theirs first, not rewinding the tape or not returning it on time and our parents copping a fine.

Streaming services are great and they've been one of the better media-based things to have made their way into the mainstream in the past decade, with all the content for a very affordable price - cheaper than it was to rent from a store several times a month even.

But they killed video stores and therefore the overall experience associated, and the experience is something that while it might seem mundane, was part of suburban culture for a long time and a form of cheap entertainment that future generations miss out on.

Just my thoughts, but I miss going to the video store! Surely I can't be the only one?

Definitely remember renting SNES, N64, and the occasional PS1 title during weekly trips to the local video rental store. I think we stopped during the early days of the PS2 though, as we quickly adopted a Netflix sub after adopting DVDs.

Played games like Mario 64, Kirby 64, Smash, and Paper Mario almost exclusively through rentals.

The local video rental store in my town had consoles and TVs and you could pay to play video games there, and there would always be people playing Mario Kart 64, so the sounds from that game were like, constantly playing on loop whenever we visited.

Yep, we would pick up a "Pizza Pizza" from Little Caesar's (back when that tagline actually made sense and the pizza was actually good) and go rent movies every Friday. It was awesome. Of course, my dad and brother would always get something with Chuck Norris in it and I got Follow that Bird every single week, always having to pay attention to make sure we chose the VHS rather than the Beta. It was also fun when we would rent games, not having all of the internet knowledge to know about the games and choosing them based solely on the box art and hoping it was actually good (and that whoever rented them last put the right game back in the case because the store workers never cared to check). Good times. I do wish my kids could have that experience, but they probably wouldn't care anyways.

Oh yeah. Best times for me too. Love pondering what to get whether it was a game or a movie. It was a weekly occurrence for us too. I started out with NES rentals and moved up to genesis from there.

The worst was renting a game for two nights only to find out it was trash! Then again, better than buying it and realizing it was trash i suppose.

I was never in that generation ya old farts

I never really rented games, even when Gamefly came along; namely because I only owned handheld systems until the family Wii. I borrowed a couple of GBC games and loaned some out in turn. There was a local grocery store where we'd rent the occasional VHS tape for a weekend, along with buying a pizza. This was a treat every month or two.

I was a teenager in the mid late 1990s. I'd rent Super Nintendo and NES games. I loved renting the Empire Strikes Back NES game and renting the weird games for SNES like Lost Vikings 2 and B.O.B.

then when the Playstation an N64 games came along I rented a few even a Playstation console i rented one time that was protected by being inside a small suitcase thing.

One day I rented Azure Dreams and really didnt know what to do

I used to rent Nintendo 64 and GameCube games when I was a kid. We would go to our local video store (as well as Hollywood Video) to do just that, while my parents would rent movies for themselves to watch. Once, there was a tent sale that my video store had - that's how I got my copy of Kirby 64. Good times - I sure miss them. lol

Yep, this was the big thing for us too, and we discovered plenty of gems along the way. But I also distinctly remember renting 'Mario is Missing' for Super Nintendo one day, thinking well it has Mario so it has to be good, right? Little did my brother and I know, we were in for one of the worst gaming experiences of our lives. Total crap. Hah

Then in the late 90s when the store were discontinuing the rental of Super Nintendo games, we bought up a stack of them for a cheap price. Like all our Christmases had come at once. Good times.

@Tendo64 I'd say in that case that Mario himself wasn't missing, but his soul probably was.

Every Saturday morning my dad would take my brother and me to the video store depending on how well we did at school that week. That was how we played so many games during the NES and SNES era since the only time we would get new games were twice a year, Birthday and Christmas.

Of course there was always that chance that we could get a stinker of a game then we were stuck with that game for the whole weekend.

@Tendo64 I have fond memories of video stores too. Without them I would have never known about Transformers or seen the original Star Wars. I rented games too, most of my N64 experiences were rented. I only owned a couple games.

But I wouldn't want to go back. It was a much more expensive service for one. It was less convenient too. Things out of stock, overpriced stale candy...

But like book stores, there's definitely an experience to walking the aisles and browsing the selection.

@Heavyarms55 One of my best/worst renting memories was I rented Banjo-Kazooie from Blockbuster and played it as much as I could for 5 days. I made it all the way to the last level but had to return it. Went back the next day, spent the $5 or whatever to rent it for another 5 days, beat it in 30 minutes and returned it an hour after I rented it. It stunk to have to spend that extra $5, but I guess $10 was still a lot cheaper than buying it.

@Xyphon22 Oh for sure. But still a lot of money to have a game for less than a week.

One of the more pointless things my local video store had going was for the newest games, it was overnight rental only.

Which meant if you rented it, you had to either play the hell out of it in one day, which was only possible if you had absolutely nothing else going on in life (which was never the case with me) or fork out more upon returning it to get it out again, and even then it wouldn't be enough time.

Sometimes though this was the only way you could play the game, especially as a child with no income, and the only times of the year new games would come would be either saving what seemed like a s***tload for ages, birthdays or Christmas. Interesting how it all works - as a kid, more time to play games but no money to buy them with, and as an adult, all the money to buy them with but not a lot of time to play.

Or you could be like my poor ass and still not have enough money to buy games