 Originally Posted by Cykotic
I remember a local video rental place from when I lived in Newcastle. The guy who owned it was an encyclopedia of movie knowledge and knew every film he had in his catalogue. I can guarantee, if you went in that store, you would come out with what you were looking for EVERY TIME... Blockbuster moved in near by and the little shop of treasures went tits up.
I tried blockbuster... I swore from that moment, I would NEVER go back. The staff were always rude, they had no idea what they were talking about, their movie knowledge was the same as a nun in a swingers club (no idea what they were doing or how the f*** they got there) and they didn't care about their job.
Things like netflix, LoveFilm and on-demand services are killing things like Blockbuster and HMV, in the same way that they killed the Indie shops. Jessops either couldn't or wouldn't accept the fact that most people have the same technology in their smart phones that they do in their DSLR's.
Maybe there is hope for HMV... I wanted Jessops to stay around... Game went under but was saved.
See ya later Blockbuster... don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out biatch!
1)  Classic.
2) Yeah, I don't remember our local rental shop being particularly movie-nerdy, but it was pleasant in general. We used it most weeks, so it seemed, and I've still got some big box ex-rental VHS tapes in my collection from there. They had a whole section for videogames (and yes, a porn area behind a beaded curtain - classic), and you could buy amounts of time on the consoles they had set up. I remember the protests kids would put up when their time was up and the staff would come over and turn off the console, lol.
I also have fond memories of going to the Mega Drive (Genesis) section of games which was right next to the horror section - I'd see all these wonderful covers and just think "wow, someday I'll get to see these movies".
Blockbuster though, I never used one generally as we didn't have one in our area, but I have been into a few elsewhere and they just felt like factories. Nothing special.
Perhaps some HMVs will stick around, like maybe they'll vastly shrink their number of shops to just some key areas and try to focus their approach ... or maybe it will go belly up. Game, as you say, survived - although when you go to their site you can't help but wonder how. They're flogging Gears of War 3 (bog standard edition) at an "on sale" price of £39.99 ... i.e. the standard launch day price.   Hmmm...
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