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GameFly accuses USPS of Netflix favoritism

Gaming rental company GameFly, which has been trying to build a lawsuit against the United States Postal Service over alleged favoritism towards Netflix and other competitors, has asked a judge to have USPS reveal more information to the public on their dealings with Netflix.

GameFly wants information regarding photos that clearly show that two California-based offices have "Netflix only" mail slots.



The rental company also alleges that due to preferential treatment, Netflix and Blockbuster have less discs damaged during mailing. GameFly says it has been denied a request to have "the postal service manually cull many of the" discs it is sent, which they allege is done for Netflix discs.

The USPS has so far denied all of GameFly's claims and said they should change their mailers if they want automation postage handling.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 13 Oct 2009 14:31

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• 10 comments

• SProdigy

  Well duh. Netflix pays for the special automated postage/handling. How else do you think their turnaround time is so fast? Gamefly should get their head out of their ass because 4-5 day turn around is terrible.

  13.10.2009 17:02 #1

• slickwill

  Don't people play the rented games (from Gamefly) way longer than watching rented movies (from Netflix)? So there would be way less games being shipped/returned compared to movie rentals.
  
  A more efficent way to run a service like this is to have everything downloadable...but then again their is the major constraints of money and control by the corporations/publishers/etc, so this type of service to become mainstream might take a several more years or may never occur due to money and control. (Sure there are several examples of this occurring right now, but I'm talking about making any physical copy of media obsolete with total control of purchased, tangible copies for the end user.)

  13.10.2009 18:53 #2

• Run4two

  I think that Gamefly is barking up the wrong tree. They do need to change and have automated mailers. If there are post offices with high enough demand to put in Netflix only drop offs. More power to them. They aren't doing it to benefit Netflix, but to be more efficient and speed up their work and consequently help out the public. I am neither a Netflix nor a Gamefly subscriber and do play more games than watch movies.

  13.10.2009 19:57 #3

• emugamer

  Be careful what you wish for Gamefly, or you'll end up with the USPS having thousands of your games stolen.

  14.10.2009 07:57 #4

• atomicxl

  I don't think the USPS is to blame for damaged discs. I've shipped CDs and DVDs to people in plain paper envelopes all of the time and never had an issue. I think the real cause of discs broken in the mail can be revealed by visiting a gaming site and searching for threads about cracked or scratched discs.
  
  The usual response is to sign up for a Gamefly trial, rent the game that broke and send them back your broken copy and be like, "you sent me a cracked disc"

  14.10.2009 09:46 #5

• pirkster

  USPS has only the USPS in their best interest. If they do segregate Netflix, it's because those discs historically jam their machines. That's been well documented. Disruption of the automated systems or any downtime costs them big money for a lot of reasons.
  
  I've had more Blockbuster discs damaged than anything. So, what GameFly is doing is blaming someone else for an industry-wide issue that they (for some reason) feel they they can blame/pass the cost to someone other than themselves. Damaged discs will happen, and you have to account for that additional cost in your business model instead of blame the shipper.

  15.10.2009 11:34 #6

• Gnawnivek

  The turnaround time for Netflix is the fatest comparing to BBV or GF (i had prior experiences with all three services). GF is quite slow, but it's not exactly the carrier's fault. I've found that GF's queue is the real culprit. It takes way too long to get the next item shipped. Not only that, the queue works in "mysterious" ways, i.e. never the game on #1 spot even if it's highly available. However, if you "play" around your queue, you do get the games on the top, but then the time it takes to ship gets longer...
  
  If there are GF drop off boxes, then yeah, i'm for it :) Hey, ultimately, GF customer benefits right?

  15.10.2009 16:24 #7

• Don917

  If Gamefly wants better treatment of their disks, all they would have to do is switch over to using red & white envelopes so they would get mistaken for Nexflix disks !!! Joking aside, after working in a medium sized post office that serves approximatly 30,000 addresses. I see literally hundreds of Netflix disks a day, several Blockbuster disks, but I only see a Gamefly disk every couple of days. Gamefly should take a less confrontational approach, and grow their business. To assist them in that direction, USPS has business mailing reps that visit and interface with major mailers to improve their usage of the Postal Service.

  15.10.2009 23:07 #8

• pirkster

  Originally posted by Gnawnivek: The turnaround time for Netflix is the fatest comparing to BBV or GF (i had prior experiences with all three services).Well...
  
  In my experience, Blockbuster is faster by about a day. Netflix is well known for throttling.
  
  I suppose it all depends on where you live: service time is affected by your post office and the proximity to both you and the disc shipping facility.

  16.10.2009 10:21 #9

• Gnawnivek

  Quote:Originally posted by Gnawnivek: The turnaround time for Netflix is the fatest comparing to BBV or GF (i had prior experiences with all three services).Well...
  
  In my experience, Blockbuster is faster by about a day. Netflix is well known for throttling.
  
  I suppose it all depends on where you live: service time is affected by your post office and the proximity to both you and the disc shipping facility.To be fair, BBV is faster if you return the mailers to the B&M stores instead of the mailboxes.

  16.10.2009 10:28 #10