Gaming can be an expensive hobby. Once you have saved up all your hard-earned cash for a gaming platform, you then have to fork out more money for some games to play with it. But it’s not all doom and gloom, for I have found a solution. Boomerang Rentals is a UK website where you can rent video games online. Think of it like Blockbusters when they were around but online and no late fees.
I wouldn’t even like to guess how much money I’ve spent on games over the past 25 years. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve had to prioritise how I spend my money. Me being in my 30s and having bills and two young children means I can’t go out and buy every new game that comes out. Having less time to play them as well now, I’m more particular about what games I buy. If I’m paying out £50 for a new game, it’s got to be something I know I’m going to enjoy, or it may be a few months before I have some spare money to buy a new game. This means I probably miss out on a lot of great games as I don’t like to take a risk and buy a game that I might not enjoy. But then I found Boomerang.
How It Works
You choose a membership package that suits your needs and budget, then choose a game that you want to rent. You can go through the library that contains hundreds of games and make a list of the games you want to rent, then choose the order they send them out. They will then send it out to you in the post to your front door. Once you’re done with your current rental, send it back in their reusable envelope and choose your next game. You can keep the game as long as you want, and you also have the option of buying the game if you decide you want to keep it. They have a large collection of games from every platform from Nintendo DS to PS4.
Membership Packages
See below a picture of the different packages they offer. Each package has the options of renting between 1 and 2 games a month.
Boomerang offers a membership “holiday” where you can suspend your account for a set amount of time if you need to have some time off from the service.
I’m on the priority 1 package, and this costs me £10.99 a month. That works out to about £132 for the year. Now, if we say the average triple AAA game is about £50, that means as long as I rent over 3 games a year, I’m saving money. So far this year, I have already saved around £300 by using this service. What I find great about Boomerang is that if I don’t enjoy a game I rented, then I don’t feel bad that I’ve only played a few hours of it. I can simply send it back and try something new without feeling like I’ve wasted money.
I’ve played some great games this year that I might have missed if I had to pay full price for each one, like Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, which always interested me but wasn’t a sure thing. At the same time, I’ve played some games that I didn’t enjoy but that I’m glad I was able try out out, like Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
.
It’s Not Perfect Though
Of course, there are some drawbacks to this service, one of them being availability. If a game is super popular, then you may have to wait a period of time for that game to be available again, and then there’s the postage. I’ve only had one bad experience so far when I rented Super Mario Odyssey back in March. At the time we had all that snow in the UK, and unfortunately, my rental got lost in the post. While it wasn’t Boomerang’s fault, I did have to wait a fair amount of time before the game was taken off my account so I could resume my service and rent another game, but I was compensated with some bonus points that I could use to rent an additional game.
Being a man on a budget, I love how Boomerang allows me to continue to enjoy my hobby without breaking the bank. Have I stopped buying games altogether? No, sometimes when I’m out and I see a game I want to play that night, or if it’s a game I know I’m going to enjoy and keep, then I will buy them. But Boomerang gives me the chance to play more games than I normally could afford, and it makes it so I don’t feel guilty if I get a game I don’t enjoy.
For more information on Boomerang Rentals, check out their website here
