Forum - View topicNEWS: Blockbuster to Shut Last U.S. Video Rental Stores, DVD-by-Mail
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mgosdin
 Posts: 1302 Location: Kissimmee, Florida, USA |
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So another brick & mortar enterprise passes.
Mark Gosdin |
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SpacemanHardy
Posts: 2509 |
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It's officially the end of an era.
I remember getting my mom or dad to take me to Blockbuster almost every Friday so I could rent an SNES game. Didn't matter if the game was good or not; I had something new to play for the weekend, and it was always exciting walking through the door and seeing all the titles up there on the shelf. Now.... if we want to rent a game, we have to settle for whatever Redbox thinks we want to play, or we have to suffer through GameFly's shitty service. Sure, there are digital downloads, but it's just not the same. 
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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They died to me years before this when they ditched all anime off their shelves over here.
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dan9999
Posts: 648 |
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GOOD!
You cannot stop technology and the advance of time. Others should take its example. Outdated business models and corporations NEED TO DIE (or reinvent themselves and adapt and embrace to new times, new technology, new generations). PERIOD. |
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Mawdryn
 Posts: 240 Location: St. Louis, MO. U.S.A. |
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Man, I saw quite a bit of anime at my local Blockbuster stores (it seemed to vary by location and what was popular there--some stores had a lot of anime titles while others barely had any).
I probably went to Blockbuster at least once or twice a week in the 90s, so its final demise is a part of my past forever lost. |
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_V_
 Posts: 619 |
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Blockbuster *deserved* to fail, and it didn't simply fail because it's a brick-and-mortar.
It's religious fanatic leader insisted on *editing movies*, even R-rated movies. Thus it was physically impossible to get the full cut of certain movies which his personal beliefs deemed too graphic or controversial. That destroys many Horror, Action, but also drama movies. We're not talking porn here: I mean relatively "mainstream" movies, if R-rated stuff, they would edit in-house. Basic economic principles: if you don't provide people the service they hoped you would provide, they're going to leave and never return. I mean....if you're a hot dog vendor, and you tell customers "I refuse to put grilled onions on this "Grilled Onion Dog" due to my personal health beliefs", and easily accessible hot dog vendors *do* include grilled onions, you're going to lose those customers! This wasn't even.....deciding to be "family friendly" and stock only G-rated movies sounds a bit silly, but it at least somewhat comprehensible. But saying "We're going to invest money on buying R-rated movies but also on editing out the R-rated sections".....why even bother stocking R-rated movies? People who wised up to what they were doing who wanted R-rated movies, even some PG-13 rated movies I think, ended up going elsewhere. Yes there is a vacant old Blockbuster store in my hometown which has been empty for a few years but.....on all available evidence, Blockbuster was badly mismanaged and deserved to fail. Similarly, I mean....did Bandai deserve to survive in an increasingly competitive anime market? When they had no real strategy of any kind? When they willfully, blindly insisted on selling anime at Japan-level princes? Even as all industry insiders and news outlets were pointing out the simple logic that many anime shows will never have the same level of demand in North America that they do in Japan, because they've never even aired on TV here? I hate to see a company go, but where some see tragedy I see survival of the fittest: this is an opportunity for better-run brick and mortars to pick up the slack. Maybe Barnes & Noble's video sections will have slightly less pressure on them as a result of this. |
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dragonrider_cody
Posts: 2541 |
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Wow, really? Their "religious fanatic" leader left the company when they were bought out by Viacom back in the 90's. It wasn't long after that that they started carrying unedited R rated movies and even carried unrated cuts of theatrical films. Of course, being owned for a time by Viacom, who spun out the company and left it heavily in debt as a result is one of the things that killed them off, besides failing to adapt to a new market.
Also, Barnes and Noble is trying a new format in several markets that almost completely gets rid of their home video section. Several of the ones here have had it replaced with a children's, toys, and games section. The movies are on a couple book cases towards the very front of the store with a tenth of the selection they once had. It seems they are cutting back on DVD and bluray, just like Best Buy and everyone else. Technically, Blockbuster isn't entirely gone, though its stores will be closed. It's On Demand and streaming services will still exist, if you are a Dish customer. |
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Eisenmann V
Posts: 212 |
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Uh, no. Blockbuster, while it used to have a policy against X-rated or unrated cuts of movies, didn't actually go and chop up copyrighted material themselves. There are tales, however, that back when Blockbuster was the king of video rental, some studios would voluntarily sanitize their movies in an effort to be carried in Blockbuster stores. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15548 |
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What killed Blockbuster was the DVD. It was cheaper to own than VHS, so there was no incentive to rent, anymore. That, and what killed a lot of box stores in the 2000s. They bought up too much space, which meant they paid too much back in property taxes, and it really stung when the bottom of the housing market fell out.
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SpacemanHardy
Posts: 2509 |
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Yeah, sorry V, but what you said is a crock of shit. Editing the movie itself would require a completely separate production run of the DVD master, which is not something Blockbuster is capable of doing and, if they tried, would potentially get them in legal hot water.
Now, I do know that they preferred not to stock NC-17 or Unrated versions of films. And if what Eisenmann said is indeed true, then the edits made would've been made by the film's production company themselves, not by Blockbuster. But as a former employee and a long-timer renter from Blockbuster for many years, I can tell you that not once did I ever rent a movie from them that - as far as I could personally tell - had been "edited". In fact, the one I worked at carried quite a few of the "Unrated" cuts of movies on their shelves. That's how I first watched Van Wilder (and the infamous "eclair" scene.... O_o). |
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TheSeventhSense
 Posts: 104 |
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So it's too late to return my overdue VHS of Big Fat Liar? It's only 10 years overdue...
Also, one thing I remember about Blockbuster is the candy/popcorn was rancid and most of the movies had "Youth Restricted Warning" on them. |
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SpacemanHardy
Posts: 2509 |
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Let's hope for your sake you were joking. I know Blockbuster has sent things smaller than that to collections for long-standing rental fees. And believe me, you do NOT want something sent to collections. 
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TheSeventhSense
Posts: 104 |
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Oh crap. I was partially joking. It's my great-grandma's VHS... |
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TsunaReborn!
 Posts: 4713 Location: Cheltenham UK |
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It's a shame but LovFilm does such a better job
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Kougeru
 Posts: 5577 |
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I stopped using them because they had double the price for video game rentals as another physical location, and of course far more expensive than Gamefly. They didn't use to be this way, it only happened when the XBOX 360 came out. They felt "this generation of games is worth double the rental fee" or some crap. Im glad that worked out well for them
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