Grrr... Blockbuster...

The BBQ Pit
1

Why the fuck don’t you include instruction books when people rent out video games? Sure, I like to rent the game to find out if I like playing it enough to buy it. How the hell am I supposed to find that out if I can’t figure out how to play the damn game? Am I supposed to guess at which buttons do which? Not to mention the storyline that I am likely missing out on. For what? So that your instructions won’t get ruined? What’s that? You don’t want to lose them, so nobody can use them? I am paying 6 fucking dollars to rent your game, the least you can do is give me the instrustions. If I lose them, charge me. That’s fine, because then I would get to play and enjoy the game that I have rented. Ass-fuckers.

OK, I’m done now.:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

2

I suppose that’s because people rent the game, then forget to return the manual along with the game.

Fucking Blockbuster.

3

The manuals tend to get lost somewhere in the renting process. Or at least that’s what a Blockbuster employee friend of mine told me. Someone rents the game, takes the maunal out, doesn’t keep the box and the book right next to each other and forgets to put the book back in. I think the book loser used to be charged $5 or something for his goofup. As it is, I always check the box at the cashwrap when I’m renting a game. If there’s no book, make sure the cashier knows that it’s missing so I don’t get charged for losing it. If I feel like I’ll need the book, I ask for another copy that has a manual.

But yeah, it sucks donkey balls to get home and find no book when the book is desperately needed. You’d think they’d run off a bunch of photocopies when they first buy the game so they can keep replacing lost manuals

4

Hey, it’s time for evensven, the official SDMB video martyr!

Video game manuals are pretty and shiny and colorful. They get stolen, or at least thumbed through beyond repair, nearly instantly. You’d be surprized what people will steal.

Trying to keep the video game section up is an thankless job. I like video games and video game people, but on the whole the people that rent video games are not a very responsible lot. The aisles get messy faster than in any other section (even kids!). Stuff is stolen constantly.

Since most video game renters are repeat renters, video store clerks tend to throw their hands up and let them make their section a mess if thats how they want to live. If they want put stuff back in the wrong place, then they better learn to like looking all over for stuff. It gets really really tiresome babysitting a bunch of full grown adults who come to the store nearly every day and wreck the place.

So we give up. Yeah, it’s our job to make renters happy, etc. etc. etc. But we’ve got an entire store full of renters that can usually make it through the store without completely destroying the aisles and stealing half the stuff. Since for the most part it is a single population messing up the video game stuff, and since, for the most part, it is that same population renting those games, fixing stuff in the video section become a low priority.

You can always ask to check for a game manual, and request a different copy if it isn’t there. That probably won’t do you too much good, though, because it’s pretty likely the manual isn’t in any of them. On most packages, the really really important instructions (which buttons do what, etc.) are printed right on the back of the rental box. If Blockbuster at some time had to replace the rental box (something that happens a lot with video games: see rant above) it won’t be there because the process for making the original box insert and replacment box inserts is different.

This situation does suck for normal customers like you. I think that the video game renting public is as much to blame as Blockbuster. But really, why are you renting at that godforsaken place anyway? Look in the yellow pages and you might be able to find an independent store specializing in game rentals which pays their workers enough to care and is more interested in and capable of keeping the unruly manual stealing masses in check.

5

…Plus, Blockbuster can’t put photocopied manuals in with the rentals because Nintendo prevailed on that point in a rather large lawsuit.

Here; search for Blockbuster - it’s a bit past halfway down.

6

For more tales of missing game componants and other fun - Read The Acts of Gord

:smiley:

Grim

7

Oh Lord. Should I even bring up the time I rented Final Fantasy VII from Blockbuster the THIRD day it came out and there were no instruction manuals for ANY copies left?

YOU try learning an RPG with NO guide whatsoever!

8

Online walkthroughs/FAQs have been known to include the button assignments. You can light a candle, or you can curse the darkness.

9

Well, The BBQ Pit is for rants. If I wanted to brag about how I looked up and FAQ on-line, then Iwould have put it in MPSIMS. Instead, I felt the need to bitch about how I shoudln’t have to get an FAQ on-line, from an outside source, to learn how to play the damn game.

10

Is the story about Blockbuster insisting that people rewind DVDs an Urban Legend?

11

they have some damn funny commercials!

12

I take it you missed the first 20 minutes of the game that was the instructional walkthrough?

13

Blockbuster must throw the manuals away when they buy the games. I swear. I have rented brand new games from them, and they NEVER have intructions in them. Never. I cannot understand why they don’t put them in with the game, and tell people it will cost them $50 (the price of a new game) if the instructions are not returned with the game.

Here is what else baffles me: I figured maybe they put the instructions away for when they invetably sell the game. They buy tons of copies of the big new games, and they usually end up in the used bin. I bought SSX Tricky from them for $30, but there was still no instruction booklet in it.

BTW: if you are really stuck in a game, try www.gamefaqs.com and search by game. You can more often than not find a complete explanation of the controls and quite a bit more about just about any game you can imagine.

14

I don’t think so. At least in the beginning. I have seen the “Be kind-rewind” stickers on DVD rentals at both Blockbuster and mom-and-pop stores in the early days of the format. However, I think they’ve wised up and realized the error-they don’t do it anymore. I have no idea if the braindead employees still believe it, however.

I hope somebody buys Blockbuster in the future and makes them better. Maybe the Supreme Court can claim they are a monopoly since their parent company also owns Paramount Pictures.

15

Apparently so! It was the first RPG I’d ever tried to play, and I don’t remember any walk through or basic instructions given.

Or I could just have been a drooling moron (could have been??) :wink:

16

Sure sounds like a UL but there’s nothing at Snopes yet.

17

Some of the old “rewind” stickers also function as theft protection stickers. This story was probably spawned by a BBV that ran out of the stickers t hat they normally use on DVDs and used a rewind sticker instead.