Game Access, A Canadian Gamefly

Stylez wrote:

Still using it, still a phenomenal service for me. The capital of Newfoundland is sadly still in newfoundland... I think they generally ship out of quebec. Definitely spring for the "reserved" feature. You'll get your top 10 games then.

Well I used to live in Corner Brook on the west coast, and a lot of the time the mail would land in St. John's and then get driven 660kms back across the province to reach me. So, I now save a day or two at least.

I still use it and wouldn't hesitate recommending it.

I signed up for it a couple weeks ago. I've been happy thus far, though the games I've got sent have generally not been in my top 10. When there's something I really want to play right now, I'll keep in mind the reserve feature, though.

Wow. For all that it's an ad, it's coherent and polite. Must be a Canadian thing. (And damned if I'm not actually gonna check out the link.)

Alright so I'm late to the discussion. I subscribed to Game Access today. Anybody still a member and a happy customer?

I'm getting this to fight off my impulsive game buying habit.

I`ll still buy games, just not as many.

I was extremely happy until about the last month. I pay for the membership level that allows you to reserve a title to guarantee you get the next copy that comes in. I've never had to wait more than about 5 days for a reserve to clear. I reserved H.A.W.X. over a month ago and it still hasn't shipped. I started in queue position 16 (usually something around this), move up to position 3 within 2 days and sat there for 3 weeks before moving up to position 2 where I've been ever since. Their stock meter says they have enough of the title in circulation that I should be getting it quickly and I haven't been. Stylez has been waiting an equally long period for Resident Evil 4. We both e-mailed them and got boiler plate responses back saying the queue was working but there was high demand for the title. That was 2 weeks ago. I e-mailed them again yesterday and told them if demand is this high, they need to start buying more copies of the game to accommodate it. My 6-month membership term just renewed and I told them if this isn't resolved by Tuesday, I'm canceling it.

This sounds bad but I would still give them a chance and see if this happens to you. Up until this single problem, they've been fantastic to me and I'm hoping my threat of cancellation will kick them into gear and that will be that. This may just be a case of a group of people holding onto a certain title longer than normal and them not wanting to buy more copies because they know the game isn't very popular. We'll see. Without question though, they absolutely destroy GetGames.ca which I wouldn't recommend to my worst enemy.

I've been using them since January, and have been pretty happy. At the start, I was getting things from pretty far down in my queue, and I tried and gave up on the reserve feature Parallax mentioned after trying to Left 4 Dead without much luck (got stuck at #5 in the reserve queue for two weeks), but recently they've been quite a bit better about sending the games from high in my queue. Turnaround time for me has been about a week, which is more than I'd like, but is good enough.

My turnaround has always been very good but I am also closer to their office in Laval. Honestly, if they can get this reserve issue straightened out, I'll be back to having no complaints. I really never has problems with it until now so I don't know what's up. The other great thing I didn't notice until recently: If you've been with them more than either 3 or 6 months (can't remember), you get free shipping on all game purchases from their online store. Given that they already undercut the retail prices on most games by $2-$5, that's pretty cool. And if you've been with them more than a year (like I have), you automatically get another 20% off the price of used games which is also pretty awesome. And the cool thing is you just get these for loyalty, you don't have to pay extra for them like you do at EB Games.

So a little update to what I posted. GA never responded to my e-mail but suddenly today, HAWX was sent out to me and Resident Evil 5 was sent to Stylez. So maybe they got the message or just realized that we were waiting far too long. So if delays like this don't come up again, I'll be very happy with them once again and I applaud them for stepping up on this issue.

So is this still a relatively reliable site? After another sweaty half-hour of "almost-buys" at my local EB Games, I realize I need to really make serious efforts to cut off making impulse purchases of games I know I'll get bored with or finish after only a few days play.

I'm still using them and aside from the occasional hiccup (which they're quick to remedy and usually give me account credit for), I have no complaints. I was surprised to see your name on a thread about a rental company.

I`m using them as well but I don't think it's for me. The whole mailing and waiting and all is too much for my busy life (read: lazy)

When I subscribed I really wanted to receive Call of Duty World at War for PS3 and I did everything so that it was first on my list and all games below it in my queue had a dramatically lower availability.

YET, I received my 2nd choice and Pure (which wasn't even in my top 5). I hardly played them. It seemed like a good idea at first but I still bought games this month and I'll play them whenever I like, knowing it's not costing me 25$ a month to have them sit there.

So basically if you're like me, a very busy person (read: lazy), don't subscribe. Your games will sit there unplayed and the ones you get next may not even be the ones you really wanted to get in the first place.

It's still working fine for me. Like interstate, I'm not generally getting the top game in my queue, but almost always one in the top 10 or 15. It seems like trying to get new releases, or a specific game, is a fool's errand unless you pony up for the reserve feature.

But otherwise, it seems to be a success for me. I go through a couple games a month. I'm finding I'm much more willing to try games that I probably would never buy (GTA4) and I feel far less regret now upon deciding to give up on a game that wasn't for me (Dead Space). Plus, I haven't bought a console game in the six months or so that I've been signed up (curse you Steam sales for making me qualify that).

Yeah, without reserve getting new releases is unlikely, unless you put it at the top of your queue well in advance of release. Everything without reserve is first come, first serve. Reserve isn't perfect by any means but it tends to work well enough that I usually have at least 1 new title in my possession at all times. The last 5 or 6 games in a row I've had from them have been new releases. If you do consistently play and turn over the stuff they send you, this service saves you a fortune every year, even compared to renting the games from a local video store, much less buying them all.

Forgive the thread necromancy, but I'm considering signing up for this. Anyone still using it or found a good alternative?

I've been trying to find opinions on the service and most are quite old, and obviously, people only really post online when something goes wrong.