Upon the widow's walk they wait for me...

Wait, Gamefly misses me? Misses me. I don't think that's...hang on, what's going on here? Am I being emotionally blackmailed by a subscription service? 

"Hey. It's been a while. I thought maybe we could get some coffee, you know, catch up?"

-Gamefly

Above: the once ubiquitous Netflix
disks were delivered via horse-drawn
buggy back in the mid-00's.

They recently sent me an email with that as the subject line: "We've missed you". And I just can't help but feel that--huh? What's Gamefly? I'm glad I pretended you asked. It's a subscription kind of like Netflix was back in the olden times when Netflix sent you physical discs. Remember that? No? Well they did, except Netflix stopped doing that when it was clear that everybody streams things and can't be bothered to wait for disc 2 of Season 2 of Lost or whatever in the mail. Gamefly on the other hand clung to the old business model in the face of things like Xbox's Gamepass and e-shops and that's fine. 

Download speeds up to 1,200 Mbps?
Cool, can I pay up to $79 every month?

The fact of the matter is, that this is America and not everyone has decent internet and Redbox is still a thing so God bless. But the final straw for me wasn't the obsolescence of physical media, but the fact that the turn around time went from a couple of days to a week. You end up spending most of the subscription waiting for the next game, which might have been Gamefly's fault or it might have been a side effect of Postmaster Louis DeJoy's efforts to sabotage the mail. Either way, it just wasn't worth it.

No, I'm asking: why does this Trumpy
goon still have his job? Seriously.

Embarrassingly, months would go by where I forgot I even still had the service. I'd just have Titanfall or Hyrule Warriors sitting on my shelf, unopened in those little cardboard sleeves. Sometimes I think that's the idea. Like, it's why they're so insistent that you can cancel anytime: they're hoping you'll sign up for the trial rate and then forget that you gave them your credit card. In a way they're a lot like Louis De Joy: just sitting there, hoping everyone forgets he's was still on payroll. 

Anyway, I don't think I'm off base when I say that no, of course the faceless corporation that is Gamefly doesn't miss me. It misses my monthly subscription fee. But I guess the real question is, does this ever work on anyone?

Pictured: Gamefly waiting in vain upon the widow's walk. Longing for the day I return from the sea.

(source: art?)