Millennial here What were blockbusters like?

big

>>81856508
never had new releases in, candy and drinks 5 times more expensive then the grocery store next door. videochest was where it was at

>>81856508
>Millennial here

>Millennial is the name given to the generation born between 1982 and 2004

Most Millennials know what Blockbuster was like.

>>81856508
They had late fees. Fuck them.

I used a Hollywood Video and before that a local independently owned rental place, but they're all more or less the same.

It was a really comfy atmosphere to go into one and just casually walk around deciding what you were going to get; they were rarely really busy. Eventually you knew the people that worked there as well and it was just a nice experience. I miss the nineties so badly.

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Choosing a movie whitout really knowing about what to expect was nice sometimes.

>>81856562
>Millennial is the name given to the generation born between 1982 and 2004

But, that's wrong. The cut-off year for Millennials is 1999 as it refers to it being the last generation born prior to the turn of the millennium, i.e. 2000.

Still, a Millennial would have experienced Blockbuster.

>>81856526
for you

>>81856610
>turn of the millennium, i.e. 2000.
Dumb idiot.

You go in look for movies, games, tv show you wanted. You take the empty box with the movie you want to watch to the front desk. You can purchase snacks and drinks to go with your movie. You hand over your blockbuster/hollywood card to the person then he puts the tape/cd into a blockbuster box and you get the movie. If you don't return it by a certain day you get charged. It made movie night special.

>>81856508
Blockbuster was shit. Overpriced and out of stock. And the people that worked there were idiots.

I worked at a local video store with 3 locations in hs. Any local video store were a million times better.

Extremely comfy, with a better selection than any of the major streaming services. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

>>81856610
>The cut-off year for Millennials is 1999

Someone really needs to make an executive decision on this because nobody can seem to decide what the ages actually should be.
Every single thing I see says something different

>>81856508
Way less convenient but they were comfy for some reason. Idk probably just nostalgia but I miss them

>>81856648
Remember buying games from old school Toy's-R-Us? It was the same kind of high. I loved it.

>>81856648
This also
>Never ever have that same movie night you watch with friends and family feel again
Renting a movie was something special. I had gatherings of friends to watch a movie, but now we just gather to watch tv show sometimes.

>>81856508

They were ok, until they started doing more and more shifty things with return times and late fees. Also, you rented video games at your own risk because of how the cds would get fucked and they would keep renting them out anyway.

>>81856610
>Millennials (also known as Generation Y) are the demographic cohort following Generation X (mostly in western countries). There are no precise dates for when this cohort starts or ends; demographers and researchers typically use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000s as ending birth years.

one day rentals were a complete scam

>>81856508
>What were blockbusters like?

It had that "clean sterile" feeling when you walked into a Dentists or Doctors office.
But that feeling was great.

>>81856508
Blockbusters were great. The new releases were sometimes sold out, but they stocked plenty of copies, so that wasn't often.

Movie selection was limited. They only had what was new and/or popular. Awesome movies from more than a couple of years ago were nowhere to be found.

Towards the end, they were really aggressive with the sales. They had these deals, like two unlimited rentals a month for $30. But they were constantly selling the new deal even if you bought the old one. Once the purposely cancelled my two movie unlimited monthly deal so that I would have to buy the new deal. I never went back after that. It has just grown too uncomfortable wit the sales pitches.

>People actually payed for things
Huh, old people are funny.

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>>81856508

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>>81856648
SOMEONE BUILD A TIME MACHINE AND TAKE ME BACK I WANT THAT HIGH AGAIN I EANT THAT FEEL AGAIN

>>81856508
Millennial here

they were pretty great

I used to go into mine and get the 5 for 5 deal and take out 5 sci-fi or fantasy films i'd never seen before, based purely off the cover art. Grab a bag of skittles and head on home for a night of adventure.

>>81856508
It was only cool when your parents were paying for it

>Ridiculous late fees
>$5.99 for 2 days of some recently released movie
>Games always out of stock because some fag with the monthly subscription no late fee BS decided to hoard super smash bros or GTAVC for months
>Snacks are all almost movie theater tier priced

I remember my parents renting an actual DVD player to watch the matrix

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>>81856508
Where do you live?

Try Family Video. They're the only video store I know that is still in business. Just rented Kingsman from them yesterday.

I worked at Blockbuster, Red Giraffe, and Video Vault. I miss those days. The only jobs I ever truly enjoyed.

>>81856508
Millennials remember Blockbuster. You must be Gen Z.

>>81856508
>implying I even lived near a blockbuster

Local movie stores
There was a place that forgot you would rent movies, and we would never give the DVDs back. And they would still rent movies out to you. And you would just return them months late and not get a late fee.

BUT if you returned it like 2 days late youd get a fee.

Also they would rent out screener movies. It was pretty great

>>81856570
so does the library you retard. what is your point?

>>81856508
You could print out the pictures you had taken of Pokemon.

>>81856859
Gen z here. I remember blockbusters too.
OP is some backwater mong

>>81856789
kys frogposter

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>>81856648
>>81856819
Those were the fucking times man. Especially watching it on a tv with a big ass back no flat screens and inserting a video tape. I remember rewinding the tape and fucking trying to fix the screen so it wouldn't tear

>>81856834
Still have Family Videos near me, and they seem to do a decent business.
I dont go in very often because its close to a 20 minute drive from where I live now. I have a redbox one block away, and I can just torrent anything I really want to see

>>81856668
No, they don't. Because it's ultimately unimportant and frankly kind of stupid to try and reduce generations down to blocks divided by arbitrary dates.

The reason the Baby Boomers were labeled as a generation was because of an insurance study on the possible effects of the post-war population spike on the medical systems in the US (a situation we are now facing as the boomers are now elderly).

It had fuck all to do with pop culture, social trends, politics, etc. That shit was all tacked on later by marketing assholes.

>>81856508
>What were blockbusters like?

Salty Milk and coins

>>81856581
Hollywood Videofag here. Can confirm it was top tier.

Did you guys have a 5 movies for 5 dollars for 5 nights deal? Fuck that was great

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>>81856508
>mfw my local blockbuster got turned into a used book store

the irony was lost on my parents.

I'm considered a millennial and I saw Blockbusters.

They seem pretty far away, but it felt like last week when I was drooling for some Bug's Life toys my parents had no money to buy. We'd rent some pretty interesting movies, though.

>>81856728

Our local one got better with fines, if we didn't return a game or film for a while they just let us spend the money that they would of fined us on more rentals.

>>81856926
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXRviuL6vMY

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>>81856581
>>81856591
>>81856648
>>81856662
>>81856715
>>81856900
>>81856926
>>81857130

>>81856581
>>81857130
I never used Hollywood Video as it was from out of town, but Game Crazy was vastly superior to GameStop in every single way.

They held out taking trade ins with cartridge based video games way longer. I was a cheap ass who also liked to hoard things, so I was buying NES/SNES/N64 etc etc games at GameCrazy when they were dirt cheap and nobody actually wanted them.

But then again I always thought that Babbages and EB games were better before Gamestop killed them off too. But thats kind of dating myself

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>>81856508
my local video place let us save all our receipts and after 50$ in receipts you got to rent a free movie or game

and I rented a ton of sega games that way

>>81856508

Dirty. The floors were always sticky.

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I remember when i used to rent a game or a movie and all i wanted to do was go home and play it I had no other worries in the world. They were magical times I WANT THEM BACK

>>81856508
it was a magical place to go on friday and saturday nights. You were either going to hang out with your friends watching films or gaming or with a girl you wanted to fuck.

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you will never read the back for the story of a vhs tape in a plastic container again
movies you've never heard of and no internet to look them up

good times

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My family used to use a local independent that had great horror and scifi. My mother worked there for a while so we always got to rent vidya for free
>mfw somone wrote all the cheat codes into the photocopied manual

>>81856508
Mom n' Pop VHS Rental store>>>>> MEMEbusters

Anyone who disagrees is underage .

>>81858239
fucking hell I remember that. good one.

>>81858279
100% right. Shame they closed before i could work there.

>>81858239
>>81858317
>cheat codes were actually a thing

Seems like a different planet

There still are blockbusters in my country

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>>81858363
>rent game again
>someone continued on your data
>they got past the part you were stuck at

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and always rent over a holiday, you'd get an extra day free to play the vidya ;p

>>81858279
This.

My friends and I rented softcore/hardcore porn and faces of death from one of those with no questions asked.

>>81858459
>renting faces of death

Damn man, was this some kind of rite of passage?

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>>81858459
I liked that they had a "porn" room where as Blockbusters didn't even have any adult films.

As a kid I couldn't go through the beaded curtain but I could pretend to be looking at "comedies" but secretly be looking through the curtain to see some nudity on the covers.

Also this VHS tape was right at eye level in the drama section. Id walk past it every time i was there.

>>81858279
>lived in a small town growing up
>that had 3 other small towns nearby
>7 local movie stores between the three
>remember calling up all the different stores and seeing if they had movies in stock and "reserving" a copy

Sadly one by one they all died, selling off cheap movies and DVDs every single time.
It was 30 miles into the small "city" before you would find a blockbuster.

>>81858549
I lived in a small city growing up and we had at least 3.
One of them used to sell pot if you asked the kid working there.

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I feel as though I need to clear some things up about why Blockbuster Video is closing, and why they went chapter 11 in the first place a few years ago

>Blockbuster Video used to be owned by a Jew owned company named Viacom
>Viacom are money-grubbing whores
>Viacom buys all of blockbuster's rentals and merch with loans, instead of profits
>every year use profit to pay off loans, take out new loans to buy new merchandise
>blockbuster decides to split from viacom because they are tyrants
>viacom takes all of blockbuster's profits from that year, but does not pay off the loans
>the loans were taken out under blockbuster's name, not viacom's, so the loans technically belong to blockbuster
>viacom does not tell this to blockbuster corporate
>when blockbuster finds out, there is already a shit ton of interest, and viacom has all of their profits
>desperately try every quarter to pay off loans
>1 mil loan becomes 3 mil then 5 mil, finally tens of millions of dollars are owed
>go chapter 11, file for bankruptcy
>Dish network buys Blockbuster Video, because they want to use the iconic Blockbuster Video logo to sell tv subscriptions, plus wants brick and mortar stores to sell tv subscriptions
>closes unprofitable stores that were still around after chapter 11 closings
>has 300 locations left
>all are profitable
>blockbuster is profitable as a whole again, especially in the North East
>fast forward 2 years to 2013
>Dish decides to go exclusively to streaming
>considers selling BBV
>no fewer than 3 companies are interested in buying
>but Dish wants to keep Blockbuster logo for streaming service, cant do that if they sell the company
>decide to liquidate stores, put 3000 people out of work, all over the rights to a logo
>tell employees they are being laid off AFTER telling the news networks

Blockbuster's problem was it was owned by two shitty corporations.

>>81858545
>sneaking into the backroom while little brother was look out
I am not sure this is a universal feeling but it felt the same way jumping into a McDonald's ball pit felt.

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I came here to feel, and I was not dissapointed

>>81858516
for 14 year old edgelords who "aren't like the other kids," yes

>>81858442
actually being able to get stuck on a game is yet another thing that has been consigned to history

>>81858400
There are still Blockbusters operating in the United States.

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hijacking thread
so this simpsons joke posits that pornography was not freely available and was actually a good to be sold at retail at a dedicated brick and mortar location
explain how this worked

>>81858789
There are stores that sell porn. Usually also sell all sorts of paraphernalia like toys as well.

>>81858789
There are still tons of sex shops around. They just call them adult bookstores now.

>>81858615
There was a "thrift store" type place in town. The Old crazy man went to flea markets, bought cheap stuff (like you would find at a gas station nowadays), lots of just random junk. Think if a hoarder had a store. Cool place

He was a genuine, albeit kind of crazy guy. He had a really shitty son who also ran the store when he was out. He would deal pot and paraphernalia out of the back of the store. Everyone knew and nobody ever got in trouble for it.

Its weird thinking about small towns in that way.

>>81856508
There were like skating rinks but with less games...

Wait millenial...hm...ok

They were like gamestops bit you didnt get to keep anything you paid for.

>>81856508
It was awful. Dont listen to any of these nostalgia fags tell you otherwise.

Youd go to rent a new release, and youd be lucky if there was a copy in. If there wasnt a copy, youd have to reverse the next one that came in, which could be a couple days. Then, once you got the movie, youd have to cross your fingers and pray it wasnt scratched to hell and back and that it would work properly. A lot of the times the movies would freeze and skip and completely ruin your immersion. Then, if you had a back bone, youd have to go through the hassle of telling the employee the movie didnt work and they would only give you a store credit so you can try your luck at another movie. One time, and this is no joke, I rented 3 movies in a row, all of them barely worked because of how scratched they were. And then on top of that, if youre just 1 day late to return the movie they charge you something like 2-3 bucks per day. It was a pain in the ass and there is a reason video stores are absolete

>>81857130

FUCKING this!

Hollywood came out a in Southern California some years after Blockbuster... basically the EXACT same model as BV but a jazzier feel... and as I recall they had a better selection.

Well mine was maddening.

>walk in one week new releases at the front
>walk in next week they are at the back
>next week entire layout has changed
>next week it's changed again
>can never find shit
>staff constantly stoned
>returned shit late all the time, never got a single fine
>doubt they kept records of any kind
>used to keep video game manuals in the cases
>would go in, write down cd key download my pirated copy and activate it
>one day went in, a kid with Down Syndrome was working the till
>he had that job for 6 months, and was best employee in the shop
>saw an employees egg his own store
>by the end they sold some of the shop space to a guy who just sold random electronic gadgets and unlocked people phones
>then it became a Pizza Hut

But walking into that store every week you spent the first 15 minutes just trying to figure out where shit was.

>>81858891
>the movie you want is there, but only the "widescreen" version was there
>you get it and its not rewound
>you finally get it going and there is dropout and grain throughout 10 minutes of an important scene because its a rental copy

And of course you can talk about "Rental" edition DVDs. The ones that have the special features removed so that if you want to watch behind the scenes or something you have to BUY the fucking retail version.

>>81858891
>A lot of the times the movies would freeze and skip and completely ruin your immersion.

You probably had a shitty VCR

>>81856562
I'm born in 89. What do I have in common with some fag born in 2004?! They need to redefine this term.

>>81858855
My friend used to rent porno from the video store all the time (which he wasn't old enough to do at the time) also he would buy weed off the guy.

Eventually he owed the guy a ton of money for the pot and the guy threatened to print up a copy of all the porn he rented and send it to my friends mother if he didn't pay up.

Good times :)

>>81859026
Freezing and skipping is a DVD problem
Droupout and grain problems are VHS problems

>>81856901
Libraries are for fags like you.

>>81859039
>What do I have in common with some fag born in 2004?

You will both be poorer than your parents generation.

>>81856508
The one thing I remember about it is that it had some really really soft carpet. Walking around inside it felt strangely comfy. Also, paying 3 bucks a pop for new Saturn / Playstation games was great. Good ole CD-RW.

>>81856901
>>81859071
>not renting movies from the library

They actually have a decent selection and the shit is free.

We who were born in the early 80s are very different than the kids born in late 80s/early nineties, so I don't consider myself a millennial. My cut off is 89.

>>81859118
Yeah but do they have Haagen-Dasz fridges? I don think so

>People born in 80s being like people born in the 90s

What is this heresy?

>>81856508
They all had the same smell. Every blockbuster on earth. And they sold overpriced mike and ikes even though nobody likes mike and ikes. They also sold magazines and sometimes little pokemon doodads and had fridges filled with Surge. They also had little plastic stands that would mark where each video was supposed to go with the videos cover on it, so if you had baggy goth pants from Hot Topic that could fit like a hundred of them at a time, your bedroom was decorated with little plastic movie posters. It was bretty comfy.

Also, you have no idea what the fuck the word 'millennial' means.

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>>81858789
My local video store had a section behind a curtain with porn.

Sadly all 3D, but my FYE sells hentai.

>>81856508
Millennials were born from 1984-2000. What the fuck are you on about?

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>>81858965
Hollywood Video and West Coast Video were aesthetic as fuck. I remember renting Socket and Dynamite Headdy at WCV. Good times.

>>81859204
>and had fridges filled with Surge
Yurop here. No idea what this is, they had this >>81859167 instead

>>81856508
a big Redbox you could walk into

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>MEMBER WHEN PEOPLE USE TO LEAVE THEIR HOUSE TO RENT MOVIES?

>I MEMBER XD

what was the last thing you remember renting at a blockbuster?

I remember renting LOST season 4 in 2008

>>81859726
Smackdown: Here Comes the Pain in 2004.

Not even memeing, that game and its create-a-wrestler mode changed my life.

>>81856508
delete this

>>81858891
Once stores went to DVD they were pretty shit. Most people didn't know how to handle discs and a lot still don't today, so they'd be fucked up half the time. It was also when big chains started to go full Jewish.

>>81859726
Not blockbuster but movie gallery or something and it was Prey on the xbox.

>>81859726
Jak 3 in 2005

>>81859726
It was a sonic game and all I remember thinking was I'm never renting a sonic game again.

>>81859726
Okami for PS2 in 2006-2007. I'd play it in the mornings before going to school. It was neat.
I was so happy when I beat the final boss, but wait, he isn't the final boss! You still have a lot to play through! Now here's the REAL final boss... Haha sike!

>>81856508
Plebeian.
I went to Blockbuster to rent Fellini's 8 1/2. I asked them about it at the service desk and they asked me if I was looking for 9 1/2 Weeks.

>>81856789
Some blockbusters still exist.

>>81857133
I don't get it.

>>81859203
You both experienced the 90s in your youth

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>>81856508
I always hated the place they ran my video store out of town at jumbo video you used to be able to make yourself a small popcorn near the front of the store there were games there as well. Then you would walk around looking at games and movies FUCK blockbuster !

tfw your parents would let you pick one game,movie, and candy.

going to blockbuster and toys 'r us were the best times of my life

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>>81856508
>VHSs were never rewinded
>some VHSs were damaged and had grainy/staticy parts that could completely ruin the picture and your immersion
>DVDs were even worse
>Always had deep scratches
>Would skip, freeze, and sometimes just wouldnt play
>Youd rent a dvd, get home, then find out it doesnt work, so you have to go back, tell them it doesnt work, and then they would only give you a store credit and put the dvd right back on the shelf because they never threw broken movies away
>Youd have to get to the store right when they opened to get a new release or they would all be gone
>Youd then have to put your name down and theyd call you when a copy was returned
>Youd get charged 2 bucks everyday for late fees. So if you rented 3 movies, and were just ONE day late, thats $6 of "fuck you" money for the video store.


Yeah. It was shitty all right. People will say "it was fun to get out of the house" and those people are losers with a small world that considered going to the video store a big outting. When you put any shred of logical thinking into video stores vs streaming, streaming shits on it in every conceivable way. Its better, faster, more convenient, no late fees, no return times, movies are gauranteed to work, no leaving the house. Nostalgia fags are the absolute worst.

>>81857874
Game Crazy has a LOT better trade in deals too compared to Gamestop.
>tfw mario kart double dash was getting released, my local game crazy had a tournament to win a free copy
The tournament was time trial of the first track using mario and luigi. OF COURSE the autismo kids with bad parents just let them sit in the store for like a week prior doing nothing but practicing, so they won.

Also my best Hollywood Video memory is getting to FINALLY rent Yoshis Island for snes. It was always rented out, but one fateful time I got to snag it!

>>81858238
You will never have a body like prime Arnold Schwarzenegger

>>81860259

Difference being, I remember the 90s way better lol.

>>81856508
>Walk into local video store at 12
>Spend an hour looking through various kinos
>disabled guy in a wheel chair drops his kinos
>I pick them up for him and offer to carry them to the counter for him
>Guy at the front desk tells me i'm a good kid and gives me my kinos for free

>>81856834
plenty of family video stores around WI. they're actually building new ones.

>>81856508
How are you a millennial and have never been to a blockbuster? I'm a millennial and I remember the last time I went to one when I was 14 or 15.

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When I was growing up i used to go to blockbuster and Hasting. I would just rent any movie that I never heard of. I watch Tons of asian shit, but mostly stuff like pic related. I miss it.

>>81860654
My first job was at a Hastings, the cases we used to house the movies and cds and shit were hell to open. You had to have this little tool to wedge into the shit to unlock it but it never would, so you just had to use your fingers if you ever wanted it open and it hurt like shit.

Our store manager would let us have a free book every week or month idk, i never did it, but the others did. I wish I had now though.
Only catch was you had to rip the front cover off so she could write it off as damaged.

>be me 9 years old
>live next door to video shop
>go accross with no money
>pick a movie at random
>The Ring
>guy at the counter knows me and doesn't give a shit about ratings
>puts it on my dads account and tells me to make sure I bring it back
>watch it
>absolutely shit myself
>nightmares for weeks
Fuck that guy. I've never watched it again since.