That wasn’t of course, the original system. Originally, even being an hour late triggered late fees. And I believe being charged late fees by Blockbuster is exactly what prompted Reed Hastings to start Netflix (back when the only business was the DVD-by-mail service. Once Blockbuster started getting hurt by Netflix (and people choosing to buy instead of rent movies), they switched to the “no late fees” system you described. Later, of course, streaming movies became feasible, although the licensing is more complex than renting physical movies.
Nope, this included scenes BB was “uncomfortable with” in R-rated movies. The management was quite prudish. And many of these edited versions were never re-rated, so they didn’t carry an official R rating or anything. It was BB’s standards that had to be met, the MPAA’s standards were immaterial.
A secondary effect of this was that studios didn’t want to bother producing two different versions, keeping track in their inventory of which was which, etc. and so other stores that weren’t so prudish got stuck with the BB edit.
Netflix is not much better. I did the free trial earlier in the year and two were the edited down versions. Since Netflix does NC-17 and has some movies that are basically porn, this was a big surprise.
Not quite sure why Family Video is succeeding. There was one where I went to college in Stillwater (with porn), multiples close to my childhood home (Dallas suburb) and where I live now (OKC) - I don’t think they have porn, but I haven’t looked either.
It seems friendlier than BB did, and prices are far better. On par with RedBox, but with better selection. I enjoy (and my wife does not) playing the Family Video game, where you look in the 2 for $1 section and find two things that are adjacent to rent.
I feel bad for the people who losing their jobs but I’m not sad for the company. I always preferred the mom and pop video rentals and Blockbuster helped put them out of business. The only chain I liked was Wherehouse and that was because they had a lot of films I never heard of like “Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Dead.”
I had always found that the opposite was true. I lived in four different neighborhoods (two in Buffalo, NY and two in NYC, NY) when a Blockbuster location opened up and it was always the same deal - the store would open big and be stocked with every title you could imagine. “Kwaidan? Over there in foreign language.'” “Otto Preminger’s Laura? It’s in the film noir classics section.” “Scorpio Rising? Yeah, in the art films section.” All at bargain basement prices. And it would be great for about six months.
Before you knew it though, the “mom & pop” video stores were out of business, AND THEN Blockbuster would start weeding out the “lesser performing” titles, shedding interesting art films to make room for more and more copies of the most recent formulaic Hollywood schlock. And eventually, they would have entire walls full of hundreds of copies of “Con Air” or “Face / Off” and not much else. At the same time, the rental prices would get jacked up tremendously.
And after that, the franchise managers would decide they didn’t need quite so much space and scale back their stores, getting fewer and fewer copies of anything, so that even if all you were interested in seeing were Hollywood craptaculars, it became harder to rent them.
Added to that was their refusal to stock titles they deem objectionable, notably NC-17 films, or controversial titles like “The Last Temptation of Christ” or anything with explicit LGBT content. I can understand them not wanting to stock a porn section, but strictly forbidding “Heny and June” was patronizing at best. If your business model is implicitly designed to run all your independent competitors out of town, then you really have no moral standing for refusing to stock titles.
For all that, I say good riddance. Blockbuster Video imploded because they were a shitty store that established themselves on a bait & switch policy. The age of monolithic superstores like Blockbuster and Barnes & Noble was ultimately brought down not because of the internet, but because they deliberately squashed innovation and did not serve the public. Why in the world would anyone miss these abominations?
The article from the OP indicates that the company is closing ALL stores. Where do you live that has 7 Blockbuster stores that are somehow not closing?
The articles I read said that about fifty franchise stores will remain open. They’re only closing the corporate owned stores.
Okay, I see that now. I guess I don’t understand the difference between “company-owned retail stores” and “franchised and licensed stores”. Basically all remaining Blockbuster stores are NOT closing. Which kinda’ negates this whole thread.
The local Blockbusters were all closed this week for inventorying and they reopened yesterday for their closing sales. So I guess they’re all on the block.
I stopped at a couple to check out their prices but it’s not worth buying anything yet. They’re selling their used DVD’s for $9.99 and used Blu-Rays for $12.99. I can get better prices than that for new stuff. For example, I noticed they were selling a used DVD box set of the first season of The Sarah Conner Chronicles for $24.99. Deep Discount sells that same set new in Blu-Ray for $22.02 and they currently have it on sale for $17.97.
I figure I’ll check back in a week. Stuff may be picked over but the prices will begin dropping. I’ll start buying when Blu-Rays hit five dollars.
Indeed. Right now there’s no reason for us to drop prices…there are plenty of people who don’t normally buy movies who think they’re getting a deal because we’re going out of business.
Still, though, it might be worth it to come in, to buy some of the stuff we don’t normally sell. Sure, the TV Seasons are more expensive than you can get them new elsewhere, but it might be worth it to spend the ten bucks on documentaries or other rare-ish movies that you can’t get elsewhere.
Well, 250 out of 300 locations are closing so that still seems thread-worthy.
Are the remaining franchises going to still be called Blockbusters, or do they have to rebrand?
I worked for a company that had Blockbuster for a client about 7 years ago. We advised, with strong facts/data behind it, to do exactly this.
Their response, much boiled down into a snippet was…we can’t do that because it would hurt our stores.
It is the old ‘you have to destroy your business model in order to save it’ and BB, like many others, just can’t get itself to do that. When they finally realize and act it is too late and they still do too little since it will still impact their declining stores.
There was also a little of the, for lack of better words, an “anti-geek” culture. The poster boy for this was Sears. Sears should have DOMINATED internet sales but instead they are in deep trouble now. On eof the major reasons is that executives at Sears despised “Geeks” and didn’t think they should be paid what they were commanding…so they didn’t get the best and brightest, couldn’t keep them around once they became more experienced and couldn’t adapt to be the leader into the Internet.
BB had some of this as well, though not as bad. BB was notorious for paying an ‘ok’ salary then working you to death for many hours over 40. Yes, most companies do this but BB was particularly bad.
I, for one, think it is a good thing BB died. Hopefully lessons will be learned.
I should point out that Best Buy (whoa BB just like Blockbuster!) is having this issue as well. Intense pressure from the likes of Amazon is hurting them and they complain about being Amazon’s ‘showroom’ - People come to Best Buy to find info and see/touch what they want…then go home and buy off Amazon.
Our company has repeatedly told these people that they have an advantage over Amazon if they just allow people to order in the store and have it delivered to the store or home. Best Buy seems to be somewhat embracing this…but they are not pushing it in their stores and they still charge shipping to send to a customers home rather than store. A vibe off ‘too little’ and maybe a little ‘too late’.
Time will tell.
Inside the last Blockbuster in America
Family video is still doing great. There are a lot of them here in the midwest.
Renting a DVD in person isn’t dead. Family video and Redbox are going strong.
Now what am I going to do with that old unredeemed Blockbuster gift card i still have? :mad:
(As an aside, add that to another one of the many reasons I hate gift cards and gift certificates.)
Well, 5 years later there’s some telling to do. Best Buy is doing surprisingly well. A couple keys: A boss who knows how to shift things around in a changing environment and personalized service, esp. the in-home techs.
They also recently announced they won’t be selling CDs anymore. Another sign of keeping up with the times.
I get why Blockbuster stores in Alaska stayed open but why Bend, Oregon? Isn’t that more densely populated?
Interesting to see all the love for the Mom and Pop stores. Trust me, they weren’t all great. I worked at one in high school for a while. For a 17/18 year old, I had a fairly decent knowledge of movies and my friend that worked with me had an even more extensive knowledge. That was helpful, since this store didn’t stock porn, so we had to compete somewhat on a better movie selection.
However, the manager had an epiphany one day. He basically changed the store into a Hooters, hiring only attractive women with the Hooters look. He was even too gutless to fire the male employees, he just gradually reduced our hours until we had no hours on the schedule.
The place closed about a year or so later, I went by there after my first year of college and it was becoming a Taco Bell.