The Gamefly Aftermath

An interesting thing happened this morning. I actually got a call from Gamefly. The guy explained that he saw my emails and my blogs and would try to smooth things over.

First thing I thought was "Wow, someone reads my blog?"

At any rate, I explained my grievances and he did something that reminded me of the Gamefly of old. He didn't do the whole "game availability spiel". Instead, he actually explained in explicit detail how the process works.

And he made sense.

The short of it is this. They don't look at just your queue order, but instead how long a game has been in your queue, along with how long it's been in other queues. If I put a game in my queue yesterday and a guy who had the game in his queue for a while puts it at the top of his list, when a copy becomes available, he'll get it first. Makes sense right?

He also explained that distribution centers serve their primary areas first. Again, that makes sense.

He stressed the importance of having games in your queue, which makes sense of course. I told him that since I split an account with my wife and rent for two systems, it's important that I get the games for that system instead of risking being sent something from another system. This is where a profile system like what Netflix has would come in handy. He stated the best thing to do would be to plan ahead and put those games in my queue instead of adding them last minute.

At the end of the call I was actually satisfied. He even gave me the phone number, which on the website is harder to find than the holy grail.

So apparently my problem is that I was using it like it was 2003. Back when I didn't have to worry too much about queue management. The system does have some flaws, but apparently I have to plan ahead somewhat, as there are other factors involved.

Now there's just one thing that Gamefly should do. Put all of this information on their site somewhere. Their FAQ is a joke for all intents and purposes. Also they should fire all the guys who handle the emails, since they seem to send canned responses for the most part. Then, have the guys who handle the phones do the emails as well. If someone would have explained this in better detail long time ago instead of doing the whole "game availability" shill, I wouldn't have this problem.

At any rate, only time will tell at this point. It's nice to know that they took the time out to try to keep me as a happy customer. Of course, as usual, it seems that if you actually complain about something on twitter, then the company will bend over backward for you. GameFlyInc on twitter kicks ass in this regard. Keep that in mind folks.