Vidya rental horror stories

[Anonymous No.7488083]

Post your worst experience renting videogames. I'll go first:

>be me
>1996-97 can't remember
>go with Dad friday night to pic related so he can pick out some new releases and I can get Micheif Makers for n64
>Mischeif Makers is rented out so I get Mystical Ninja I think
>Dad always takes a long time so I wander around the isles looking at movie boxes
>notice the doorway with a blue curtain I always saw isn't an employee's only area
> walk through the curtain and it's an L-shaped corridor filled with adult films
>tight
> make the corner and see there's a man I shit you not in a literal classic pervert/flasher trenchcoat
>in texas
>notice his elbow furiously moving while he picks up different boxes and looks at them
>he's just beating off while looking at boxes in the Blockbuster
>he doesn't notice me but I get scared and leave

That's probably my worst experience in a videostore except a rural Hasting's video in Arkansas that wouldn't rent San Andreas to a minor. We had to ask for a manager and got approved eventually but nobody cranked their hog that time.

[Anonymous No.7488093]

Dude sounds pretty based

[Anonymous No.7488106]

>>7488083
>Blockbuster in Texas
>adult movies
Are you sure it was a BB and not just some local rental store?

[Anonymous No.7488113]

>>7488106
Blockbusters used to have softcore stuff, it doesn't contain any penetration just simulated sex really

[Anonymous No.7488184]

>>7488083
not quite rental. that was before my time but i got some fun vidya story
>be me
>have friend online
>finally get car
>decide to go visit him. he didnt live to far
>beater car got me there barely
>dude was a neet, spaghetti fell out of pockets on my way to meet him
>cool dude actually
>we spent the day playing xbox one vidya, hate crimes in gta and gears of war
>he loaned me some vidya
>ended up calling into wagecuck job and just kept playing with the dude
hes a real bro

[Anonymous No.7488304]

Getting burned with those Mario educational snes games. Sorry Zac.

[Anonymous No.7488361]

>>7488083
Yeah that never happened

[Anonymous No.7488364]

>>7488083
>be 1995 on a Friday
>save up enough allowance to convince helping my parents pay to rent a PS1 (it wasn't Christmas yet) from Blockbuster (they rented consoles at the time and in my area, waaaaay fucking cheaper than buying one for the first year, I got one for Christmas in 96)
>feel like shit and didn't go to school earlier that day so I don't go with them but they let me rent and check out the PS1 while I got better
>parents come home from Blockbuster
>they apparently didn't have any PS1's left to rent
>so instead they brought home a Sega Saturn

[Anonymous No.7488428]

>>7488083
Was Blockbuster like a poorfag thing? I always bought my vidya at Sears. The idea of "renting" video games never even occurred to me. Jesus christ.

[Anonymous No.7488448]

>>7488428
not really. i had a rich kid friend who would rent with me in elementary on weekends sometimes. family very well off but didnt wanna buy the movie/vidya unless they knew the liked it i guess.

[Anonymous No.7488449]

>>7488364
>So instead they brought home a Sega Saturn
Sounds like you lucked out pal. From what I've read here the Saturn is the best retro console.

[Anonymous No.7488456]

>>7488083
>Rent out Hart's War on DVD.
>For some reason, Hudson Hawk, another Bruce Willis movie was in the rental case.
>Heh, two for one
>Both movies suck

[Anonymous No.7488464]

>>7488184
Based and wholesome

[Anonymous No.7488465]

>>7488184
Cute story, but not /vr/. In fact, did that just literally happen the other day?

[Anonymous No.7488467]

>>7488428
Back then before everyone used the internet, not everyone was a geek that read all into gaming magazines, a lot of people rented games to experiment with what they liked, to figure out what was worth buying. Also cartridge games (particularly on N64) were way more fucking expensive when they were new.

[Anonymous No.7488469]

>>7488361
It sounded pretty believable to me. Plenty of fuckin weirdos around

[Anonymous No.7488504]

>>7488467
I only bought Nintendo games, particularly of franchises I already knew were well established and low quality proof like Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, and so on. I did read Nintendo Power but I generally didn't base my purchases off reviews. As for the expenses? Sure, something like Mario Party 3 was fucking 80 dollars back then but in my opinion it was fucking worth it. At my old job I worked as an accountant and I could always just stop by Sears or Electronics Boutique and nab a new game to indulge in. All it really took was just a stroll down the aisle looking at box arts and names.

Maybe this renting stuff was also more of a Sonykid thing too due to the sheer amount of shovelware on the platform. In that regard yeah I guess I could see why it was more efficient to selectively rent games out 7 bucks a pop to quote on quote "test drive" the games and cut the wheat from the chaff, but the whole concept is still fairly pedestrian to me. I cannot imagine myself playing something like Banjo Kazooie or Majora's Mask under a rental deadline.

[Anonymous No.7488590]

>>7488504
If you were already old enough to get a job at that point that's one thing, when you're a kid and your parents don't have internet yet though you have to make due.

[Anonymous No.7488615]

>>7488504
>i was an adult already making money
well there you go bro. did you think our parents would just drop 80 bucks on mario party 3 because we asked? no, theyd take us down to the rental store, spend like 6 bucks to keep us entertained for the weekend and then bring it back. it wasnt always to "test drive" them sometimes it was just for some short fun at a cheaper price

[Anonymous No.7488619]

>>7488504
I was pretty well off as a kid but still mostly rented. It stings less if its a bad game and it also just felt great to walk into a videosneed. Remember the smell.

[Anonymous No.7488624]

>>7488184
almost all your digits are 1s, 4s and 8s

[Anonymous No.7488638]

>>7488428
Poorfag here, only rented PS1 games from BB to make copies. Didn't even have a modchip, somehow figured out the timing for diskswapping on my own.

[Anonymous No.7488698]

>>7488638
Did this but for VGS instead.

[Anonymous No.7488772]

>ask Dad to pick up Link To The Past
>he brings home Pebble Beach Golf Links
"it's basically the same thing anon"

[Anonymous No.7488790]

>>7488772
I imagine you appreciated the Simpsons episode

[Anonymons No.7488830]

>win 2nd place at blockbuster vidya tournament
>prize was 10 free rentals or something
>come back 2 weeks later to get a free rental
>employee says there's nothing on my account that says i have free rentals
>parent had to ask for a manager who corrected it.
>few more weeks later, try to get a free rental, same thing, had to ask for the manager again.
>gave up trying to claim my free rentals after that

[Anonymous No.7488849]

>>7488772
I don't understand why some parents were so aggressively disinterested in what their kids were doing. Is it an NPC thing?
Maybe I lucked out because mine were Star Wars OT fans and kinda understood some of what I was saying.

[Anonymous No.7488914]

>2001, be 13
>go to blockbuster to rent megaman X5 because i had X4 and i loved it
>pay for it and leave, then ask dad to drive home ASAP (we were picking up some groceries too)
>i'm just staring at the cover and reading the booklet
>finally get home and pop the disc in
>it's a game about a fucking skeleton
>the fuck?
>turns out the guy gave me a copy of medievil instead, and i didn't notice
>nearly cry because i'm stuck with a shit game for the week, dad offers to take me back and swap the game
>employee thinks we're trying to rip him off, dad also thinks i want to steal the game i've been asking for all week until he goes to grab the other game and the megaman X4 cd is indeed in the medievil case (thankfully they only had one copy of each)
>we swap the cds and leave
>somehow i get lectured for the employee's mistake
>to top it off i play X5 to completion and i end up hating it
>next week i rent medievil
>it becomes my favorite ps1 game, so much i end up buying it and the remake for both psp and ps4 later on

[Anonymous No.7488986]

>>7488772
This literally never happened, you'd have told him it was Zelda and there would be no way to confuse it

[Anonymous No.7489052]

I never had a bad experience. Most of the time it was great because I could try out the game with out buying it, and a previous user would have a bunch of shit unlocked on the cartridge (n64 user here). Only sad thing is I would have to part with it in the end. 15 years later then rentals cost almost as much as the game and I was like "fuck this market".

I do remember hating the soundtrack of this game so much I literally played it muted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AHpkLbQIHI

[Anonymous No.7489113]

>>7488428
No. Renting games was a very common thing to do.

[Anonymous No.7489164]

>>7488083
Vidja gaems

[Anonymous No.7489181]

>>7488914
>i play X5 to completion and i end up hating it
You got filtered, sorry to tell you.

[Anonymous No.7489197]

>>7489181
He didn't get filtered. X5 isn't that good.

[Anonymous No.7489230]

Worst experiences for me were renting Ultraman on SNES and not knowing how to beat any of the bosses and getting a Game Genie without the code book. Crazy to think they used to have Urotsukidoji next to Pokemon on the shelf at the local rental joint.

[Anonymous No.7489239]

Can't really think about a bad time I had myself, some games I rented were not very good, maybe the worst was Wild Choppers for Nintendo 64.
My brother spent a day at a friend's house once and they used my father's account to rent Wind Waker but his friend somehow dropped the disc into the elevator shaft and never returned it, they never told anyone, days later the rental place called my dad asking for the disc and he knew nothing about it.

[Anonymous No.7489468]

>>7489113
Video Ezy movie guarantee.

Get it first time or get it free!

[Anonymous No.7489478]

>>7488914
Medieval is a better game than X5. You got lucky.

[Anonymous No.7489480]

>Oh wow a new Mario game! Mario games are great
>that'll be at least a decent rental
>get it home
>why is there a phone ringing
>where are the levels
>where is the fun gameplay
>what the fuck am I supposed to do
>what the fuck is this shit
I don't remember the outcome, but I might've been able to swap it for another game. Yeah, sure, i should've figured out it was some edutainment shit before renting, but I was a kid and really had no reason to believe that there would be a Mario game on the SNES that was some boring educational title. Most of the educational games I knew at the time were on PC, so I never really associated them with console gaming.

[Anonymous No.7489503]

>>7489480
It literally says it's a geography learning adventure on the front, anon.

[Anonymous No.7489532]

>>7489503
OK, go back in time and tell child me he's a dipshit, it'll save him the disappointment of the rental.

[Anonymous No.7489543]

>>7488638
I would download ps1 ISOs overnight with dial up. I really miss the feeling of waking up excited to burn a game or music cd I spent the night downloading.

I played so much obscure shit thanks to disc swapping. It was a godsend. I think I learned about it through afterdawn forums.

[Anonymous No.7489575]

>>7488986
>ask for "Zelda"
>get one of the two NES Zeldas that had already been out for years
not sure if this is bait or if you're just stupid zoom-zoom, try to understand nobody had cell phones back then, just seashells tied together with string

[Anonymous No.7489823]

>>7488504
Dude you must be line 55 to have been an accountant at that time faggot

[Anonymous No.7489869]

>older brother was having his 12th birthday party
>loads of friends came
>i was not invited
>my parents rented me pic related to get me out of the way
>fuck yes a new game
>took a big plate of early-90s party food to my room
>spent the entire night going through it
>hardass game, great graphics and styling though
>raging, sweating, and eventually beating the fucker
>or so I thought
>"grats arthur but you need the magic blue shit to kill loki start again LOL"
>in a fit of rage, punched the game cartridge, breaking it and very nearly my hand
>had to pay for it

Decades later I still don't think I can truly describe just how furious I was. Fuck that game eternally.

[Anonymous No.7489968]

>>7489869
What a ungrateful little fag. No wonder nobody wanted you around.

[Anonymous No.7489976]

>>7488465
about 5 years ago anon. I still go over regularly and play with his kids. theyre learning retro sega vidya

[Anonymous No.7489987]

>>7488083
I can't think of any Blockbuster is California that had the curtain section. It was against their whole mantra of trying to keep the video store a clean place you actually wanted to go, instead of the dingy fucked up local store.

[Anonymous No.7490150]

>>7488083
This is simply not true. Blockbuster wouldn't even carry NC-17 Hollywood films after 2001. Even before that they never had the back room with the age resrricted curtain and never carried softcore. The highest they went was R rated.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1991-01-17-1991017200-story.html

Blockbuster did get in trouble for anime though. The 90s anime distributors assigned their own ratings so the gave tentacle rape and guro snuff anime only an R rating. This is how urotsukidoji and LA Blue Girl were able to slip into Blockbuster, along with the tamer ero anime like dragon pink.

[Anonymous No.7490163]

>>7490150
After 1991 sorry. Also shows like dragon pink didn't even have warnings or any markings on the cover of the VHS tape. They were totally unregulated compared to Hollywood label requirements. I rented pic related back in the day

[Anonymous No.7490246]

>>7489181
>le filter meme
But he beat it though.

[Anonymous No.7490250]

>>7490150
Blockbusters in central Texas most definitely had backrooms. They may not have been official or anything but it was a thing

[Anonymous No.7490258]

>>7490250
Corporate poli y was against it but who knows then. But are you sure you simply are not mis-remembering ans thinking about another video chain? Most non-Blockbuster rental chains had the porn room.

[Anonymous No.7490259]

>>7488449
Yeah I sure fucking lucked-out alright when Congo and Virtual Hydlide were the only games they had.

[Anonymous No.7490262]

>>7490258
No i definitely went into blockbuster frequently to pick up films anon. I’d rent games from a Hollywood video if you remember those because the games were cheaper. AFAIK it was a common thing with blockbusters.

[Anonymous No.7490302]

>>7488083
Nothing will beat the time I rented Mario is Missing for my SNES lol I felt so betrayed

[Anonymous No.7490334]

>>7488083
I rented a Sega CDX and Bram Stroker's Dracula for a whole weekend.

[Anonymous No.7490450]

>>7488849
The Silent Generation didn't care about what their kids were doing because they were traumatized WWII and the great depression and their Boomer kids just thought that was good parenting and copied it.

[Anonymous No.7490462]

>>7489503
It also says it's Way Cool, though

[Anonymous No.7490487]

>go to rent a ps2 game
>see some game called Monkey Island
>thought it was related to Ape Escape
>It was actually some shitty pirate game

[Anonymous No.7490536]

>>7489181
Wrong use of the filtered meme, or the bait would have had way more yous. Good luck next time.

[Anonymous No.7490575]

>>7489869
the only thing that really sucks about this board is we have literal chris-chan level autists filling up the board, that post things like this with no shame

[Anonymous No.7490637]

>>7489480
>>7490302
So I wasn't the only one that got duped by this, huh? The ad I saw that got me interested in game magazines and comic books obscured that it was an edutainment title even more. By the time I got it home and started figuring out that it wasn't a real Mario game, it was too late. I still beat it though, because it was my one game rental for the week and I had to make it count.

[Anonymous No.7490659]

>Friend borrows CTR from me
>Brings it back all scratched to hell and now it runs like shit
>Refuses to load after a certain point
>Friend never gets to borrow anything again and few weeks go by
>Notice Blockbuster doesnt mark all their disc
>CTR is unmarked so I rent it
>Plays perfect
>Tell my Mom the disc doesnt work and we return it
>get a free rental coupon from Blockbuster

[Anonymous No.7491484]

>>7490575
I kind of like it honestly. I'm relatively non-autistic for a /vr/ poster now and feel much more highbrow because of it.

[Anonymons No.7491518]

>>7490659
Dishonest.

[Anonymous No.7491552]

>>7490659
I still do things like this to this day. I bought a GameCube controller at a flea market for 3 dollars. It didn’t work so I bought one on amazon then returned the broken one for a refund. I went on to sell the functional one at a premium on eBay.

[Anonymous No.7491586]

>>7491552
We used to do this with GB/GBC/GBA games for a quick buck back in the gamestop days, find the employee that doesnt check games, go to flea markets/garage sales to buy expensive gameboy games with a few shovelware titles, use hex key to open the cartridge up and swap expensive games board with cheap games board, sell the expensive game with cheap board money. Used to not ID if you were minor so we used fake names and numbers. Built up Gameboy collection and made money from it. Sleazy kids we were.

[Anonymous No.7491590]

>>7489480
Basically same story except i bought it using my birthday gift money on it thinking it was a Super Mario World 2 with Luigi

[Anonymous No.7491626]

>>7491586
>i used to larp on the 4chan
>still do

[Anonymous No.7491628]

>>7491518
There was another time in the same store we rented a game we kept longer than we were supposed to and when my mom called and asked what the late fee was they said we hadn't even checked anything out. That's how I got Mario Kart Double Dash for free.

[Anonymous No.7491771]

>>7491552
This is why I will never attempt to sell anything, when the day comes, I will smash my collection and burn it removing these out of production pieces of history from circulation and existence forever.

Only exception would be where I can gate-keep who deserves to be allowed to buy, and luckily this happens a lot these days as original hardware is getting more increasingly more scarce and prices are going up up up.

[Anonymous No.7491834]

>>7488428
>Was renting movies or vidya a poor person thing
>Shopped at Sears

Anon

[Anonymous No.7491879]

Not really a horror story but a strange one.

>Rent Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 on GBA (Blockbuster used to rent some GBA games in the early 2000's.)
>Put game in cartridge and turn on GBA
>Instead of Tony Hawk, it was Ready 2 Rumble Boxing
>I'm thinking WTF?
>Return game to Blockbuster and tell them what happened.
Employee initially doesn't believe at first, but he goes to the back to test the game.
>He comes back after a minute, and was like "Dude, you were right! Here's your refund."
>Get refund.

[Anonymous No.7491916]

>>7491879
Was it the original label on the cartridge or did Blockbuster slap their own label on it?

[Anonymous No.7491923]

>>7491916

Original Label

[Anonymous No.7491924]

>>7491628
Still got it?

[Anonymous No.7491930]

>>7491923
I wonder how much that'd be worth these days if it was a factory error.

[Anonymons No.7491940]

>>7491916
>>7491879
>>7491923
>>7491930
Most likely, it was someone who swapped out the game.

[Anonymous No.7492128]

>>7488184
>thinking it's gonna be the typical "anon meets another super sketch from the internet" story
>turns out to be pretty darn comfy

[Anonymous No.7492158]

>>7491940
Cheeky

[Anonymous No.7492224]

>>7488504
lowkey console warrior shitpost... and people fell for it.

[Anonymous No.7492237]

>>7490450
what an idiotic generalisation.

[Anonymous No.7492240]

>>7490150
>dragon pink
>>7490163
>>7490250
>>7490258
>>7490262
Family Video had adult rooms for porn. I always thought it was the smaller rental shops that did stuff like this. I could be wrong, but I doubt Blockbuster would dabble into anything that taboo

[Anonymous No.7492251]

I worked at a Blockbuster back in 00’s. I used to love taking home games for free, sometimes even before their official release dates. Customers had such shit taste though.

[Anonymous No.7492314]

>>7488083
>Rent Batman Forever for SNES
>No manual or printed manual
>Get to point where you have to use grappling hook
>try every thing
>think game is busted
>return it for another copy
>nope, it's still fucked
>wait, the fucking Select button?
>Shitty MK controls with slow motion and shitty game
>Start playing Doom on SNES, Mom asks why I'm not playing
>Tell her how stupid the game is and how it is objectively terrible from a 6th grader perspective
>Forces me to return the game
>Get there to Blockbuster
>Forces staff to let me pick out different game and extra days rental for 3 day weekend
>Pick out True Lies instead
>everything worked out for the better

[Anonymous No.7492327]

>>7488456
kek

[Anonymous No.7492364]

>>7488849
>>7490450

>Grandmother would literally consult with gamers on what games to get for all of us grandkids who loved vidya
>She would ask "the big boys" about a game I wanted and if it was good
>Sales staff at Walmart, Babbages, and the local video store clerks.
>NES, SNES, Gameboy, PS1, PS2 always top pick and gems
>Even thought she was fucking with step bro by getting him Mischief Makers and WCW/NWO Revenge which turned out to be great

[BruceWayne5150 No.7492714]

>>7488083
Yep full of shit Blockbuster didn't rent porn.

[Anonymous No.7492964]

My friend would consistently use the discs of rentals he didn't like as fucking coasters, and then return them in unusable state. Never once lost membership or saw a consequence.

[Anonymous No.7493013]

>2008.
>Be me.
>Working at a video store.
>It's "Cheap Tuesday" where all rentals are a dollar. Brings in all the freaks and failures.
>I've just alphabetically organized a pile of new releases behind the counter to put back out for people to rent.
>See a small brown clump right in front of the Kung Fu Panda DVDs.
>Squint and get closer.
>It's shit.
>Someone has just taken a shit on the floor, right in front of the most popular rental.
>Tell coworkers.
>Neither of them want to be the one to clean it up.
>I give in and do it since neither of them will.
>Don't really know how to clean up a pile of soft serve shit off of carpet.
>Use a dustpan to shovel it up, and a mix of cleaning stuff we had out the back to remove the stain.
>Put an orange cone over the wet patch to stop customers walking on it.
>relax and don't have to do any work for the rest of the shift.
Christ we had some oddities there. We had this incredibly mentally handicapped guy come in every so often. Like, you know how there are wheelchair bound retards? Ones that can't do anything for themselves? He was basically that, but was 6 foot tall, very broad, muscly, and could walk and grab stuff. He'd just come in without a carer, start grabbing DVDs off the shelves, drop the DVDs, repeat this for a bit, and then finally leave, wandering back out, unattended.
And it wasn't like he'd come in every Monday or at a certain time. He was just this awful, real life random encounter that would come in occasionally that you couldn't communicate with or stop.

[Anonymous No.7493034]

>>7488083
>Be me
>extreme poor fag
>only ever get to rent video games once or twice a year because poor
>every time I rented something the save game name would be shit like
>plzdontdel
>DONTDELETEME
etc
I would always delete these files lmfao

[Anonymous No.7493064]

>>7488428
As a kid I never saw the point of renting games. Who just wants a game for one week? I'd likely just end up buying it anyway, so I usually just waited for my birthday or Christmas for new games.

[Anonymous No.7493303]

>>7492314
N64 was my first console. I remember renting Kirby 64 and thinking the game was broken because I couldn’t move. For some odd reason you could navigate menus with the analog stick but not move Kirby. It took me at least a day to realize you move with the d-pad.

[Anonymous No.7493320]

>>7493064
i never rented either because i always thought id get attached to the game and be upset when i had to return it

[Anonymous No.7493349]

>>7493320
Same.

[Anonymous No.7493550]

>>7493013

kek