With brand new video games costing $50 - $60 each, typically not including accessories, video games can be a pretty expensive hobby. Luckily, three unique online video game rental services offer reasonably priced options to rent games by mail to avoid costly, day 1 purchases. Gamefly is the well-established industry leader to rent video games by mail, but two other video game rental services offer alternatives and friendly competition - Gamerang and Gottaplay.

How Does Renting Video Games by Mail Work?

With all three online game rental services, the user must sign up for the service, which will automatically charge the user's credit card a service fee once per month. Once signed up, the user will create a list of video games they would like to rent by searching for the titles through the respective websites.

After a list of video games is created, the service will automatically ship the first available game. If no games on the list are available, the user can either add a game that is available, or simply wait until one of the games becomes available.