I have to admit I was not really looking for a new game rental service when I got the invitation to check out Plurent. I’m a long time GameFly user and I live close to their distribution center so I get games from them quickly. However, Plurent’s system on only billing you for the time you have a game and not having a monthly fee was intriguing to me. Plus you can make some extra money for yourself by renting out the games you own through their system.
Unlike other rental services where you play a flat monthly fee and then can rent a certain number of games at a time, with Plurent you pay to rent a specific game with no monthly fee. So, if you do not currently have a game in your hands from Plurent, you are not paying anything. They do not even charge you for the time period when a game ships and the shipping cost is included in the weekly rental price.
So, not only are you paying just for the game you want to rent but you also get to name your price for game’s weekly rental fee. At least somewhat. You can set the price as low as $2 a week for any game but customers offering more are going to get the game first. The length of time you will probably need to wait to get a game is listed when you select a price. Most newer games and new releases I was able to get for around $7 a week and then older, but popular, titles were roughly $5 a week. At those prices I was getting games shipped right away when I sent one back. If I had more patience I could have probably dropped that amount and waited a week or two, but I wanted that new release the week it came out.
At $7 a week that does seem a bit higher than some of the other game rental services, but since you only pay for the days you have the game I found that the cost for me over a month was about the same. If you have a large library of games that you own but no longer play you can actually make some money renting them out through Plurent. You set the amount you are willing to rent them for and it gives you a rough idea of the likelihood that they will rent at that price. I tried renting out a few of my titles but because I rent so many of the games I play none of my older titles that I no longer play are very popular right now. Still, I like that I have the option available to me.
Every game I thought to try and rent I was able to find on Plurent. Their shipping and handling times were pretty good too. Most of the time I received the shipped games within two days, but a couple times it took three days. Since the billing did not start until I got the game I did not mind waiting an extra day for it to get to me.
Plurent is not going to be for everyone but if there are a few games you’d like to check out for a week or two occasionally it is a great fit. If you are a heavy renter with another service you’ll have to do the math for yourself to see if the prices are worth it, but I plan to be keeping my account. Since there is no monthly fee I can just rent game when something comes along that I want to try and not worry about paying for a service that I’m not using.
