Board 8 > Family Video, the last major video rental chain, is closing for good

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.wxyz.com/news/national/family-video-closing-all-remaining-locations-holding-liquidation-sales

I'm devastated about this. The writing was absolutely on the wall; Family Video has spent the past year or so spearheading the #savethevideostore social media campaign, which primarily consisted of self-deprecating memes. Nonetheless, it sucks ass that the day has finally come.

There's something magical about video rental stores that streaming has never been able to capture. I think it's a combination of the communal feel, the "underdog" factor in recent years, and the fact that renting a random B-movie actually feels like a fun and spontaneous risk (whereas nothing is risked by pressing play on a shitty Hulu Original). Surely there are other factors as well, but at any rate, these stores will be sorely missed.

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The one in town here closed a couple months ago.

I think I went there once in the five plus years I've lived here, and that was to rent the Star Trek movies to watch them with user SaveEstelle.

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I wonder how Redbox is doing
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I wonder how business would have changed for these places if they switched to focus on renting video games instead of movies. If these places were 80% video games and 20% movies (instead of the opposite) maybe they would have had more success. I kinda miss being able to grab a game and beat it in a week/weekend. Now I have to spend $60 dollars on Miles Morales which I'm never going to play again after a few weeks.

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skullbone posted...

I wonder how business would have changed for these places if they switched to focus on renting video games instead of movies. If these places were 80% video games and 20% movies (instead of the opposite) maybe they would have had more success. I kinda miss being able to grab a game and beat it in a week/weekend. Now I have to spend $60 dollars on Miles Morales which I'm never going to play again after a few weeks.

Well, most rental places typically lost money on games, which lead to several of them setting longer minimum rental periods. Redbox stopped renting out games all together.

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Man, I live close to a Family Video. I was amazed it was still open when I moved over here and that was 8 years ago.

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skullbone posted...

I wonder how business would have changed for these places if they switched to focus on renting video games instead of movies. If these places were 80% video games and 20% movies (instead of the opposite) maybe they would have had more success.

Hows GameStop doing
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oh shoot, there's a family video near my house. I might need to check that liquidation sale to see if I can pick up any video games at discounted price. Though I'm not expecting much.

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Jakyl25 posted...

Hows GameStop doing

Bad but it's not quite the same business model I'm imagining.

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Has anyone who lives near a Family Video checked out their liquidation sales? I was about to head over to the local one tonight just to see if there are any good video game deals, but I'm worried that the good ones probably got swooped up immediately and/or the prices are high. I guess it's worth a check.


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As someone who liquidated a Hollywood Video, yes they're all gone. Our first day of liquidation we had lines that stretched around the building.

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When I was a kid I used to rent games from family video all the time. Sad to see it go

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Jakyl25 posted...

Hows GameStop doing

actually not terrible, I think? I saw something yesterday about their sales being down like 3% last year, but they closed so many stores that the average money an individual store was making is actually up. there were just too many GameStops too close to each other
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Thats sad. Kind of like a bit of my childhood died there.

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The world's oldest business that rents out copies of movies for private use was opened by Eckhard Baumin Kassel, Germany in the summer of 1975. Baum collected movies on Super 8 film as a hobby and lent pieces of his collection to friends and acquaintances. Because they showed great interest in his films, he came up with the idea of renting out films as a sideline.[1 - from wikipedoa history of video rental places

Really shows you how transient things are, when you read that video rental places, a thing that just seemed to be a part of the world that was always there was really only a viable business for around 40 years.

And Im even probably rounding up out of sentiment since theyve been on life support for over a decade; maybe 25 healthy years tops.

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Man I loved Family Video.

If there was one in my city I would have still been going there.

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guffguy89 posted...

Has anyone who lives near a Family Video checked out their liquidation sales? I was about to head over to the local one tonight just to see if there are any good video game deals, but I'm worried that the good ones probably got swooped up immediately and/or the prices are high. I guess it's worth a check.

The kicker with Family Video is that their sales have almost always varied significantly by location, manager's discretion and such. From my experience, this is very much holding true with the closeout sales as well. That having been said, I've found worthwhile pickups at each FV I've been to so far.

Some games and movies seem to have faulty pricing. Like, $12.99 for used copies of Animal House, or $29.99 for Rare Replay - that kind of thing. Prices no sane person would pay. Most movies are $1.99 to $4.99, though, with some locations having far more movies at $1.99 than others. There are some good game deals, too, and some harder-to-find titles still in the wild.

I'd say it's worth checking out if nearby and/or geographically isolated (I.E. less likely to be hit by resellers).

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RIP

At least that Blockbuster in Oregon is still kicking.

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RIP, the one I had worked at already closed 3 years ago

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My go to place for renting n64 and gamecube games

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Jakyl25 posted...

Hows GameStop doing

Better than MovieStop

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I had a dream last night about going to a family video because of this.

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To anyone who is curious, I did go there last night and it was a complete bust. The shelves were half empty and the remaining stuff was priced too high for a liquidation sale in my opinion. There werent any PS4 games under $9.99 and the few "newish" titles left were marked as high as $39.99. Even movies weren't very cheap, with their newer titles marked over $10 and their cheapest deals on older vids being $4.99 or 2/$8. Considering there is a large bin of DVDs at Wal-Mart selling for $3.99 a piece, this isn't a great deal. The liquidation sale was already going on a week at this point though and it is a populated area, so possibly there were some steals that were swooped up early.

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guffguy89 posted...

To anyone who is curious, I did go there last night and it was a complete bust. The shelves were half empty and the remaining stuff was priced too high for a liquidation sale in my opinion. There werent any PS4 games under $9.99 and the few "newish" titles left were marked as high as $39.99. Even movies weren't very cheap, with their newer titles marked over $10 and their cheapest deals on older vids being $4.99 or 2/$8. Considering there is a large bin of DVDs at Wal-Mart selling for $3.99 a piece, this isn't a great deal. The liquidation sale was already going on a week at this point though and it is a populated area, so possibly there were some steals that were swooped up early.

Nope, the exact opposite actually. Idiots think "liquidation = deal." They show up the very first day and buy all sorts of shit, most of it barely marked down, thinking they got the steal of the century. It was pretty hilarious watching people pay $12.74 for a used copy of "3:10 to Yuma" when you could get a brand new copy at Walmart for $14.99.

The only way to get deals was to basically wait it out. And a lot of employees took the best games, movies, and TV shows and hid them until the final day when we got them for $1 each. I got the entire series of 24 at the time for like $5, and God of War 2 for $1.

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God I remember being a kid and walking around Blockbuster or Pickaflick looking at the rows of movies in awe walking around looking at the so many cartoons and the huge game selection and now I can find thousands more stuff than was in that little store but nothing will ever be as fun as being in that store as a kid

Yeah liquidation sales in general are not very good deals until the very end. And with the added risk of all sales being final.
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TheCodeisBosco posted...

There's something magical about video rental stores that streaming has never been able to capture. I think it's a combination of the communal feel, the "underdog" factor in recent years, and the fact that renting a random B-movie actually feels like a fun and spontaneous risk (whereas nothing is risked by pressing play on a shitty Hulu Original). Surely there are other factors as well, but at any rate, these stores will be sorely missed.

insanity

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Jakyl25 posted...

Hows GameStop doing

Theyve brought in a few executives who specialize in online sales, and it looks like they plan on closing the brick and mortar locations. Their stock value went up because of the news.

I know that Family Video had a few sideline businesses, including fitness centers. I wonder what will happen to them?

the only side business in the ones here was CBD products

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Ours all seem to have cozy relationships with mom & pop pizza restaurants within the same strip mall. I thought it was just a unique joint venture with the one near me, but I heard two others in my areas had similar arrangements.

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There's a blockbuster here in Oregon still, I need to trek out there sometime to see it.

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As someone who prefers to go to a store in person and pick up video games, including older used games, GameStop going online only wouldn't please me. Maybe when shipping isn't a thing kthx.

>_>
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