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Legality of Renting Video Games?

Posted by Cliff on from the starting-your-own-renting-service dept.

Scott McChesney asks: "Where I live seems to be filled with Gamers but there are almost no places that rent console games. This got me thinking about opening one of my own but I have no clue about the licensing of such a thing. X-Box games all say on the back that buying the game does not give you the ability to rent it. I'm wondering what one has to do to be able to legally rent out video games?"

2 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. Meant to highlight the relevant part, sorry. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
    "During 1999, the Company purchased its videocassettes/DVDs and video games for rental and its movies held for sale from three primary vendors, Major Video Concepts, Inc. ("MVC"), Ingram Entertainment, Inc. ("Ingram") and Valley Media, Inc. ("Valley"), respectively. During early 2000, the Company consolidated its vendor relationships through changing its primary videocassette/DVD movie rental distributor from MVC to Ingram. During 1999, the Company spent approximately 60% of its purchasing budget with its three primary suppliers and the balance directly with studios and secondary vendors. Because of revenue sharing and the impact it has had on distributors, the Company believes that if one of its primary distributors were unable or unwilling to continue the contractual relationship with the Company a viable replacement can be found without materially adversely impacting the Company's business. "
    The mentioned companies have websites. I won't do all of the work for you.
  2. Re:How to make it legal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I believe it's around $100 per DVD. I used to sometimes see price sheets of rental movies at the local rental shop when I was back in the UK.

    I'm going to presume that games must be fairly similar - although $50 a pop would seem reasonable as it this would be around 100% profit to the publisher (although some fees on the back end - say $1 a rent to the publisher wouldn't seem out of the question). The hardest part would be hooking up with the retail distribution chain - I don't know how you would go about doing this.

    Unfortunately the keyword "wholesale" along with "dvd" or "game" and "rental" produces complete garbage in Google.