From the 90's nostalgia files: Remembering Blockbuster Video

One of the last Blockbusters in Puerto Rico having a clearance sale.​

Remembering Blockbuster Video​

Sometimes inspiration for articles comes from the strangest of places. As I was driving by my old neighborhood, I caught a glimpse of an abandoned building that triggered a few core memories for me. This old building used to house a Blockbuster Video store that I would visit every Friday afternoon with my father. We would head there first and search for the the latest and greatest movies and SNES games to rent. A movie, a game, some popcorn and soda and we were ready to roll into the weekend. It was fun times and allowed for some solid male bonding. It was a short period of time I remember fondly for some reason and every time I pass by that old building I'm brought back to that era. Funny how memory works some times.

This building may not mean much to many of the passersby, but this is where I developed a lifelong passion for gaming and Japanese media.
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A lot of people associate rental places with annoyance. We were often racing to the store on Friday after school if a new movie had just reached the store. Copies of popular movies and games would often rent out fast, leaving us with limited options. My younger self didn't find it that problematic. When it comes to games, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It helped me familiarize myself with the deep cuts of the SNES catalog and I developed an appreciation for the RPG genre, given those games were generally not that popular. Games like Final Fantasy II US, Ogre Battle, Act Raiser, Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, Wanderers of Ys, Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest and Lagoon became regulars in my rental rotation. Even when it comes to movies, it helped me explore some of the less frequented parts of the store (such as the Anime section) and try them out. In an indirect way, Blockbuster helped shape my taste in popular media.

I swear, I must’ve been the only kid at the store who played these games. They were always available.​

Ultimately Blockbuster died because of services such as Netflix and Redbox eating into their market share. Blockbuster tried to compete with their own online DVD by mail service, but Netflix’s streaming services really caught the market by storm. Blockbuster stubbornly stuck to their brick and mortar approach to movie and video game rental to diminishing returns. By 2010, the company had declared bankruptcy. By 2013, Blockbuster had completely ceased operations in Puerto Rico. The old building still remains unused after a decade, a stark reminder of the unforgiving advance of technological progress.

By the way, in 2000, Blockbuster turned down an opportunity to purchase Netflix. It would turn out to be a serious miscalculation by them.

Alanis thinks that’s Ironic.​

5 Random Blockbuster Factoids​

1. Blockbuster used to host gaming championships.

I don’t recall any qualifiers being hosted at my store but apparently they had tournaments in larger stores across the US. The winners of each tournament were flown into the championships to compete for a trophy and prizes.

The ad campaign had all sorts of "The Wizard" 90's flair.
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They even made a special cartridge of Donkey Kong Country for the 1994 Blockbuster Championships. Apparently it included a time attack mode, where the contestants only had 5 minutes to rack up the highest possible score across a handful of early levels. These cartridges are now considered collector items.

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2. Blockbuster was sued by Nintendo.

If anyone was under the illusion that Nintendo being a shitty company was a recent development, think again. A lobby of Software Publishers (including Nintendo) tried to prevent rental companies like Blockbuster from renting any computer software and sued them. A compromise was achieved when they accepted to end the rental of computer software if they were allowed to rent console game disks and cartridges. Nintendo, being the petty bitches they are, tried a second lawsuit to stop them from renting their games because of their practice of including photocopies of their game manuals. Blockbuster stopped including manuals with their rentals and settled the lawsuit with Nintendo. If you ever wondered why Blockbuster game rentals didn’t include the manuals, now you know who to blame.

Nintendo's lawyer? Probably this guy.​

3. You could rent and demo gaming consoles from Blockbuster.

I remember renting the Virtual Boy and the N64 a few times from my local store. Blockbuster saved me and my parents a lot of money by allowing me to experience some of the most hyped up consoles of the 90s without dropping ridiculous sums of money. Some may not remember, but the Panasonic 3DO was one of the most hyped up consoles I could remember and had an equally ridiculous price tag (599.99, if I remember correctly). I was able to demo it at my Blockbuster and that pretty much killed the hype for me. The games were so bad, I didn't even bother touching it again.

This is what a rental case for a Virtual Boy looked like. If you had a credit card on file, you could rent it for 5 days for about 19.99. Headache inducing red LED display was included, free of price.​

4. Blockbuster introduced a lot of North American kids to Anime.

Some may not know this but there was a time, before CrunchyRoll, Adult Swim and Toonami, when Japanese Anime was not readily available for people in North America. Blockbuster had a dedicated section to adult animation and it included many Anime theatrical releases and direct to video series (OVA). Some of my fondest memories of watching Anime was renting Akira, Ghost in a Shell, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Battle Angel Alita, Ninja Scroll and other 90’s classics from Blockbuster.

Two of the many classic Animes available at Blockbuster back in the day, if you had a cinephile parent who didn't care about age restrictions.​

5. There are still some remaining Blockbuster stores.

The last few remaining US stores closed down in 2018, with the exception of the locale in Bend, Oregon. With the closure of the last store in New Zealand in 2020, the store in Bend is the last remaining Blockbuster in the world. The store hosts Blockbuster themed sleep overs through Airbnb and hosts new versions of the Blockbuster Video Game championship. The 2023 event was held in the Portland Retro Gaming Expo.

Chronicle of the Blockbuster exhibit at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo. Looked kinda fun, not going to lie.

The last remaining Blockbuster in the world. Apparently, I'm not the only Gen Yer with nostalgia for this relic of the past.
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And that is it for today...

Did you enjoy this article? Do you have any interesting memories of rental places such as Blockbuster? Let me know what you think in the comments. Thanks for reading.

 

[Octopus]

I also greatly miss Blockbuster, I was constantly renting things from my local one too all the way from SNES games to 360 games before it closed down and got replaced with a shitty Dairy Queen. It served us well all those years. I remember the first day that Superman 64 hit it's shelves, and I rented it all excited; I'm sure you can figure out how that went. But Blockbuster was also how I discovered Left4Dead, so it's balanced out. This store also let pre-teen Octopus rent Robocop without even a second glance, back in the days of incredibly lax parental rating enforcement.

 

[Strategist's icon Strategist Strategist]

I also greatly miss Blockbuster, I was constantly renting things from my local one too all the way from SNES games to 360 games before it closed down and got replaced with a shitty Dairy Queen. It served us well all those years. I remember the first day that Superman 64 hit it's shelves, and I rented it all excited; I'm sure you can figure out how that went. But Blockbuster was also how I discovered Left4Dead, so it's balanced out. This store also let pre-teen Octopus rent Robocop without even a second glance, back in the days of incredibly lax parental rating enforcement.

Yikes, Superman 64. Probably as disappointing as the 3DO. But at least it was less headache inducing than the Virtual Boy.

Robocop was so weird, because they heavily marketed toys and cartoon for kids and yet all of the movies were R rated. I watched the Verhoeven movies way later in life and I was shocked at how violent they were. Didn't match the image I had of Robocop from watching the cartoon.

 

[Frickinfrik]

I loved Blockbuster. I remember renting Wii games from there. The titles I remember renting from Blockbuster were: Super Paper Mario, Mario Party 8, Super Mario Galaxy, and Mario Super Sluggers.

 

[Zerpina]

@Strategist
Really good read, nice article. We didn't have a blockbuster close when I was a kid.
Hell, not even as a teenager. When I got my license at 17 (my birthday caused me to miss the sign-up date for it at 16) the closest Blockbuster was roughly an hour's drive round trip.
We had a local place that wanted to be Blockbuster, my friend worked there.
It was kind of the "we have Blockbuster at home" deal.

But I digress, that was an awesome read, I liked it. As I have told Waffles, I love reading tidbits of real life about people and their pasts. It's always interesting insight and basically a living time capsule of a time long gone but fondly remembered.

 

[Strategist's icon Strategist Strategist]

@Strategist
Really good read, nice article. We didn't have a blockbuster close when I was a kid.
Hell, not even as a teenager. When I got my license at 17 (my birthday caused me to miss the sign-up date for it at 16) the closest Blockbuster was roughly an hour's drive round trip.
We had a local place that wanted to be Blockbuster, my friend worked there.
It was kind of the "we have Blockbuster at home" deal.

But I digress, that was an awesome read, I liked it. As I have told Waffles, I love reading tidbits of real life about people and their pasts. It's always interesting insight and basically a living time capsule of a time long gone but fondly remembered.

Thanks for the kind words. I also appreciate your articles, they bring a unique perspective to the forefront. It seems we are all trying to recapture memories from a more idyllic, carefree time here.

 

[Zerpina]

Thanks for the kind words. I also appreciate your articles, they bring a unique perspective to the forefront. It seems we are all trying to recapture memories from a more idyllic, carefree time here.

Indeed, it does seem that way. And I appreciate it. I just throw out little bits of my past, I do have to withhold a lot of info from the goings-on in those posts, due to locations and not doxing myself. But it's as accurate as I can make it without giving away, as I said, the location, the year/timeframe,
I am a very private person in real life anymore, and I would rather people not know where I am even from

 

[LaserMoose]

Took me on a trip down memory lane with this one. I was unfortunately late to the majority of the Blockbuster party, albeit I do have vivid memories of renting Spongebob: Atlantis Squarepants, Super Paper Mario, and the first licensed Car movie game.

From the case of Super Paper Mario, I remember seeing Mario Strikers Charged on one of the inserts, and thinking that the art looked really unique. I ended up getting the game later down the line, and really enjoyed my time with it.

The Blockbuster near me closed not long after the Super Paper Mario rental, if memory serves right. I was pretty upset hearing of their closures, since renting games felt like a luxury before buying a game.

 

[Zerohour2k12]

We never had Blockbuster from where I grew up but we do have a rental store called Video City though they only have movies. I think they're gone now, sadly. Nice Article btw!

 

[reiwamale]

I wouldn’t say I miss Blockbuster but I did like it. I think if anything it’s interesting that Blockbuster anticipated submersion in the ubiquitous media solution of the internet, where no one owns anything but practically has no need to. In a primitive form, rentals imply a utopian abolition of discrete commodities on behalf of total access, “illusions without owners” if you want. This is what I liked about Blockbuster as a kid: trailers and commercials were blaring through the store constantly, every game or film beckoned lost time. I also liked going to Kmart to look at the games locked in the cabinet (what did they do…?), and these faultlines were everywhere, but Blockbuster felt especially cavalier about pushing the fatal strategy. This though I think is why its ultimate decline felt less tragic than triumphant: the dream of the world Blockbuster sold came to pass. Something principled about abolishing late fees at the eleventh hour, as if to suggest they never wanted your money anyway.

 

[Deleted member 612095]

I think it's a pity that there are fewer and fewer such shops, these shops are something special.

 

[Deleted member 623180]

This is one of the biggest things I miss from my youth. I was at the video rental store no less than every other week, and usually weekly. Tuesday was the day for New Releases and Weekends were for renting games because they were closed on Sunday so you got an extra day out of the rental.

I've thought about this recently and I truly feel like the quality of cinema has gone down with the disappearance of the video rental. Movies aren't as quick to try new things now that movie theater's aren't doing as well either.

I have only enjoyed a very few movies since around 2015 whereas the 80s, 90s, and 00s seemed to offer great movie after great movie. Today it seems like they're made with streaming in mind and they're half written slop with weird endings a lot of the time.

There's been some good movies but nothing I put in the "GREATS" category.

It's also lost how much fun it was to go rent a video game and try it out. I rented more stinkers than hits, but it was still the best way to try out a game and see before purchase. I was more willing to take a leap on something back in those days and hope it was good. Nowadays I stick to what's safe if I'm gonna drop $60-$80 on a game if there's no demo available.

It's just another past joy that doesn't work in the world we live in now.

 

[GeoHikari]

Here in Brazil, there was few Blockbuster stores that functioned until the late 2010's. One of those was near a shopping center who my mother worked in my childhood, and today, in his place, lies a house-bedroom mail. I'm see also in my childhood dozens of Blockbuster commercials with some promotions of many Nintendo and Sega games on TV - those times it seemd be aired yesterday.

Sad the movie/series rent physicall is almost inexistent due for the popularity of streaming services(for those who likes), as well the alternative ways to see an production. The rental of games are still no more active, as we already known - here in Brazil, every weekend are waited for many kids after school to rent games and return it in one next Monday, as a example of that great and excentric times are in 90's, following the greatest rivalization between Sega and Nintendo.

 

[sandogma sandogma]

I had a draft for a Blockbuster article to post here because I felt it was appropriate for this type of forum but I didn't get further than an outline for it. I'm so glad someone has posted an article about Blockbuster so I don't have to lol

Great article btw and I agree with most here on the positive recollection of Blockbuster. I remember when it was new and the whole experience of renting movies was like an event of its own. I remember my young self being in awe of the rows and rows of movies, all kinds of movies. And as you pointed out, if you didn't get there at a decent time on a Friday night, all the new releases were likely gone, but it was a blessing in disguise because since you didn't want to leave empty handed, you ended up checking out something different and that alone introduced me to movies I may not have picked up otherwise, including anime!

While I appreciate and overall prefer the current state of on demand, streaming video, I am happy I got to experience Blockbuster as it was special for the time it existed.

Also the commercial jingle still lives rent free in my head.

 

[Jediuser]

Ah, Blockbuster. Takes me back.

 

[Izzy]

Long before I was the internet became a thing, I actually went to three different video stores growing up, one was Video 101 which was off the corner of Figueroa and MLKJr. It's how I got into NES, 2nd was Omni Video, which lasted longer than the previous and it was closer to me cause it was in the Slauson shopping center and 3rd was Blockbuster. Omni had a good stock of rentals from NES to PS1/2 and they were cheap as hell for rent, most $2.50 per day. Had some people who just knew me and gained a nickname from it. Lasted about a couple of years until T-Mobile took over the stall and been that way since. For Blockbuster, they did have one that was close by LAX but they made one closer and it was at Chesterfield Square. There was some good that came from this, it's how I actually learned how to review games just by attempting to play through it for a week. There were some I'd finish within 3 to 4 days and others I'd finish in a week. I'm one of the few people who tried out that sweepstakes they had at Blockbuster but got jypped after it not being in my area. There was also a Hollywood Video but it didn't last as far as Blockbuster did. Years later, when we had the Comic Book/Scifi Expo in DTLA, that was when they were selling emulators there, so I tried a few and been into them ever since. What soured my experience with them aside from that is went I rented one game on PS2, I got this creepy red screen on my console like it was a portal to Hell and took it back, they blamed me for smudging up the disc by never really touched it when I rented it. Never gone back to them since.

 

[PSVitaForever]

Around 2005 I bought an used copy of "Final Fantasy X" in the platinum edition for 10€, after a few days in another Blockbuster I bought an used ps2 (I really wanted to have the console for that game, but of course I found many others loved titles after that). So... yes, good memories about Blockbuster here too.