What were the final days of Blockbuster like?

What were the final days of Blockbuster like?

I bought a lot of cheap movies

We felt it coming. It was the end of an era. The last time I set foot in a Blockbuster was around 2009. My brother and I went to visit our aunt and we thought we would stop in to see if we could find a movie to rent. We didn't, but this was around the time we started to get into music (I was in high school and he is 3 years younger) and my brother was really into Def Leppard, and he found pic related (their first album) for sale on a rack near the registers. We remarked on how weird it was to find it because it's pretty obscure, and bought it. As we left I had a feeling that I would never go into one again because that one had a "store closing" sign outside and I hardly rented movies anymore by that point anyway.

Probably a good idea to include pic...

Like a bag of sand

probably real chill to work there for a retail job

like salty milk and pennies

I bought No More Heroes: Heroes' Paradise for like $5.

That was cool.

Like warm apple pie

Home or store bought?

At first it was pretty good cause you could get a lot of cheap movies. But it quickly turned into a dead carcass and you were the vulture coming in to pick the bones while the NEET behind the counter looked increasingly nervous as he didn't want to have to get an actual job.

Home. The kind of pie your dad walks in on you fucking on the kitchen counter and agrees to tell your mother that we just at it all.

bunch of cheap shit

I remember hearing about netflix coming out around that time. I thought how stupid it was that people would have to get videos through the mail instead of going to a blockbuster. Then netflix started streaming so blockbuster tried doing it and failed.
The funny thing is they had a chance to buy netflix for only a few million dollars. Oh well.

The Blockbuster in my town turned into a Chuck's but it closed down recently. I wonder what they will put in its place.

IT WAS COMFY

The kind made in a bomb factory.

It went out with a whimper.

Mine pretty much just had shit DVDs and sports games left. My mum bought some PS2 mat controller for £1 because she thought it would be "worth something."

This.
Last thing I ever bought was a few showa godzilla movies

I rented some games and never returned them.

everything was ON SALE!
cheap movies everywhere yayy!!
good/popular movies went quick of course but that only caused them to slash prices even further! but if i recall correctly, they did it in stages, its not like they sold out in a week. Although my local stores did post announcements on when "whole store" would be like 80% off or something. Soon other stores followed suite, Hollywood Video being another i remember just selling everything, twas a massacre.

Niggers were going into Blockbusters that were closing and grabbing a bunch of movies and running out

Sneeds
I still have 2 blockbusters in my county. It's fucking disgusting. You know those shelves that we're loaded with different movies. Imagine blockbuster but every entire shelf is dedicated to one movie. Think 300 boxes of diary of a wimpy kid followed by 300 boxes of the emoji movie followed by 300 boxes of guardians of the Galaxy 2. Good luck finding anything good

joyous

fuckers made 25%of their profits from late fees

changed late fees to "extended viewing fees"

when Netflix offered no late fees, BB ran ads that said they had no "late fees"

fucking hated that company
go riddance to bad rubbish

blockbuster was shit though. you're only nostalgic because your life wasn't complete shit when you were a child. it's 1000x more convenient to be able to download a 1080p movie for free at home.

>t. child who doesn't grasp why people are nostalgic for video rental places and their childhood in general

it's not about the content it's about the family/friend experience

>DUDE BUT YOU COULD BUY CANDY AND HOPEFULLY BE ABLE TO RENT THE MOVIE YOU WANTED IF ALL THE COPIES WEREN'T TAKEN ALREADY
t. 17 year old pretending he was even coherent when blockbuster was in its prime

>No u!
Haha, alright kiddo.

this is the most interesting thread I've seen in a long time, technically blockbuster isn't completely gone, I heard that there are about 6 stores left in the US

I thought it was 3.

just checked there's 12, I'm surprised they've lasted so long

People are nostalgic because it was a momentarily pleasurable experience as a kid, you had to put in effort. Today's youth are spoiled rotten since endless entertainment is at their fingertips.

Yea, fuck them. I remember them trying to pull that shit, but my friend had already turned me on to Netflix a couple years before so I didn't care anymore.
Now there is only one video rental store in my area and it's only open because it rents porn as well.

Having a limited selection forced people out of their comfort zones. Some people discovered things they never would have if they had limitless choices like people have today with Netflix and the like.

There's a reason why creativity seems to be lower in entertainment. Everyone just copies what's successful because people won't stray too far from what they already like.

I want to kill myself that i wasn't able to buy some of the choice shelving
pic related is from some negress' blog, and these metal wall shelves are amazing.
I've done extensive searches for the manufacturer or some comparable commercial shelving solution but found nothing.
it's driving me insane

Not him, but I remember when the only real rental places were mom and pop operations. I remember the local one had a castle like for the kids movie sections, a haunted house type thing for horror, and there was a section behind swinging double doors that I always was confused by. Why couldn't kids go into the cowboy movie section?

It's coins newfriend

I used to walk in and see what movies looked good, write them down, then go home and pirate them. Thanks Blockbuster!

Because that's where people got RAWHIDE'd

>2017
>literally no good movies
At least they are honest

Hello, child.
>I had internet access advanced enough to pirate movies
>too fucking dumb to use google
Wew.

Are you fucking dense?
It's literally just metal backing with some hinges. You can get that anywhere. You could probably make it yourself if you weren't so fucking retarded.

i don't think you know what you're talking about

online piracy has been around for almost two decades

Clearly I know more than you. Can't even find a metal plate with rectangular perforations, online, in 2017.

The fuck do you mean he doesn't know what he's talking about? It's adjustable metal shelving. It's not an uncommon item.

My local rental place had a mini playground inside of it for kids. Was pretty cool.

Is there a printable blockbuster video wrapper like pic related? I honestly think they're very aesthetic

>As we left i had a feeling that u would never go into one again

There are no blockbusters in my country but i know what you mean. Feels so weird

>moving the goalposts

Sent a letter and told to keep rented DVDs-by-post.

Avatar
Dr Who - Talongs of Weng Chiang
Robin Hood (Russel Crowe)

Can't help but feel I could have done better out of it.

The last time I went to a Blockbuster was 2006 and it was mostly only for video games. Since Gamestop took over the video game market I had no reason to ever go back to BB

I also got all my movis from torrents so FUCK BLOCKBUSTER

As somebody who grew up going to BB on Friday nights for movies and games it felt really bad. Kinda like a friend was rapidly deteriorating from cancer.

>Def Leppard
>Obscure

please kill yourself.

Kinda uneventful because I had 3 Blockbusters within 15 minutes from where I used to live and I was already streaming and torrenting stuff since 2004. Born in 1995 so I wasn't really that sad about the end of video stores because I could get movies, TV series, and even video games at my county library for free.

...

That sucks because just before BB went under they had a promotion where it was like $25-$30 for free unlimited game rentals cross platform per month

Same. Blockbuster fucking sucked anyways, I went into one maybe 3 times in my entire life before they all started closing because they were so shitty compared to the local store.

there are several of these snap stations on sale on ebay currently. average price about $900 or so

Like the final days of the Battle of Berlin. Constant looting. Mas self immolation.

>it was like $25-$30
>for free

>unlimited game rentals
>per month

American education is really struggling. What you just said is marketing doublespeak. It doesn't actually make any logical sense.

i've searched extensively there is nothing comparable online and said shelves are not easily made. don't mocking me

>reddit spacing
>acting like a jackass
I bet you "buy" movies, too.

>Deflecting
It's not reddit spacing, champ. I separated to unrelated greentexts because otherwise your retard brain would assume they were all just jumbled quotes from your post. ;)

Your hamfisted reverse psychology isn't gonna goad me into doing your work for you.
Do it yourshelve.

>$13
>used dvd
Jews to the end

>hit return twice
>"r-REDDIT"

christ you're a fucking mental midget on all counts, huh?

You ARE redditspacing though. Entirely uncalled for.

Blockbusters was bought out long ago and is a streaming service, plus a few stores are still open.

His spacing doesn't change the fact that you said something that cost $25 per month was both "free" and "unlimited"

Without late fees, how else do you incentivize lazy niggers to return movies?

The local Blockbuster had a closing sale in April-May of 2012. I got a bunch of cheap DVDs there. Now some regional chain is in the same location. I still go there to buy movies and stuff.

Remove the dialogue audio from the last 20 minutes and force them to read subtitles.
Actually, that would work for americans in general.

just remember: all the bargains you missed when Blockbuster closed will come again when GameStop closes.
Keep your eyes open!

I get better bargains from piratebay.

Thanks moron. That doesn't discourage late returns, and it punishes everyone.

It was 50 million back in the early 2000's. 01 or 02 I believe. That was a huge blunder on Blockbusters part. It's on par with some of Apples intial investors that sold their stock, Vince McMahon not buying UFC and ECW in 2001, and Microsoft not passing on having exclusivity rights to GTA3.

Golden opportunites are only golden in hindsight.

>too buttblasted to take a joke

>I was only pretending to be retarded
Hilarious!

Man I miss blockbuster:(

>I was only pretending to be buttblasted
Hilarious!

just like how leftists can't meme without copying.

Here's one.

I worked there when I was in high school and going into college. Depressing as fuck actuallyI was moving on with my life but there were people there, mostly managers and retards, that clearly thought they could work here forever and know didnt know what to do. I was leaving so it didnt matter to me, but we had a final "party" in the break room with warm soda and pizzas and everyone just kind of sat around. My boss let us take some dvds and games because he didnt care anymore.
It was also weird because redbox, netflix and streaming wasnt nearly as established so I was wondering how I would get movies now unless I bought them or saw them in theaters. It was like literally closing a door on my childhood when we finally closed the store later that week.
On a related note, another retail store chain I used to work at just went under and I ran into my old bosses when I went poking through the store just to see the place. Same blank, half asleep, thousand yard stare expression as the blockbuster employees

i miss blockbuster. netflix streaming is shit and way expensive if you count the high speed internet, and netflix by mail is slow, and redbox has poor selection. right now i just have cable because sports and so i just dvr everything on amc and fxm.

of course some faggot would make a cozy dabbing pepe

have you tried not renting to lazy niggers?

3 strikes and you're out.

The stores couldn't keep up with new videogame releases. They got rid of late fees but charged you the full price of the item if you were late returning it. They had a gamefly style system of paying a monthly fee for game unlimited game rentals but the selection was so terrible that it was only good for catching up on mid-tier releases you didn't play at release. They pushed preorders and pother offers harder than even gamestop.

Was overpriced to rent videos.

Stop with the nostalgia

Dude i stole a fuckton of PS2 games at the time!

It absolutely was one of the best jobs I ever had actually. The co-workers were cool, manager was alright if kind of sleazy and aside from some screeching kids the customers were good.

What about redbox?

There's still blockbusters in my town. Ask me anything.

I had the games freedom pass. I would rent a game, go to my car where my laptop was, burn a game, then come back 45 minutes later and get another one. I would do this 6 times a day. Eventually one banned me but there were 3 others close by driving so I went to theirs. All in all I got like 150 games for free in a month. Thanks Blockbuster.

Force them to open an account with an active credit card. This will eliminate half of them. After one month, auto-charge the replacement cost. If it gets declined (likely), they're banned.

It was glorious. We celebrated like there was no tomorrow. Blockbuster was shit, out local places had better selections, cheaper prices, and great membership deals.
>tfw our last video store, that isn't a redbox, closed down last year

Nice. I'll do this the next time I buy my parents a movie for Christmas or something.

at £1 it doesn't really matter