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Post by sbtbfanatic on Feb 11, 2015 12:22:25 GMT
The first Blockbuster store opened in October 1985 in Dallas, Texas.
In 1987, Blockbuster Video won a court case against Nintendo of America, Inc. which allowed the store to rent out video games.
At it's peak in 2004, Blockbuster Video (formerly Blockbuster Entertainment Inc.) had up to 60,000 employees and more than 9,000 stores. The franchise provided home movie and video game rental through the rental shops, later added DVD-by-mail, streaming, video on demand and cinema theater.
On January 22, 2013, Dish Network announced that Blockbuster would be closing all but 500 Blockbuster stores, and by August 6, 2013 the chain was left with roughly 300 locations worldwide. On November 6, 2013, Blockbuster Video announced that all the remaining Dish-owned stores will be shut down as well as the rent-by-mail service.
With Blockbuster Video no longer in existence, it makes me wonder who here all has fond memories of Blockbuster Video? Did you ever rent from there? When did you quit going there?
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Feb 11, 2015 12:23:03 GMT
Honestly, I never went to Blockbuster growing up. My family rented all of our movies and games from Family Video, so I never went to a Blockbuster until I was in college. Even now, I've only been in them a few times, and never rented anything from them. However, I have bought about 15 movies from various Blockbusters that were going out of business. Probably spent less than $100 to get all the movies too. You could get some really good deals from these stores. Most of them were less than $5, for some really good movies.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Feb 11, 2015 12:23:51 GMT
We had a local Blockbuster that I went to as a kid. I remember renting several Sega Genesis games from there after a hard day at elementary school. The game that sticks out most is Aero the Acrobat. I do not remember renting video's from there, just video games. A little part of my childhood died when Blockbuster officially closed their doors.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Feb 11, 2015 12:24:26 GMT
I think we actually had two Blockbusters in town at various points -- a smaller one during the 90s, and a larger one during the 2000s. I only remember going to the smaller one once or twice to rent movies (all SNES game rentals were from a local store called Movie World, including a copy of "Link to the Past" that occasionally glitched out on the title screen), but it was an interesting experience.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Feb 11, 2015 12:24:50 GMT
I used to go to Blockbuster as a kid on most weekends to get movies and games to play that weekend. The most memorable part was when they had the Kiosks for Pokémon SNAP! and Pokémon Stadium.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Feb 11, 2015 12:25:41 GMT
We had a local Blockbuster Video in town, but it didn't last very long. It arrived sometime in the earlier 2000's, possibly late 1990's and only stayed a few months. I remember going there the first time and having Mom rent a video for us to watch. We no more than attempted to watch the video and it was all messed up and wouldn't play, so we attempted to return it. They made a fuss over it and made an issue over refunding us our rental. If other families had these problems with our local Blockbuster, it's no wonder they didn't stay around here very much. It's almost too bad that's my only memory of the place.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Feb 11, 2015 12:25:53 GMT
I rented at least 15 movies from Blockbuster. I have to say it was pretty convenient before Netflix came around
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Feb 11, 2015 12:27:33 GMT
I remember having a Blockbuster in the 90s. I would go in there on a regular basis, because they had the Pokemon Snap machine set up. So I would take various pictures of Pokemon, print them and leave. It wasn't very often that I would rent movies from there. When me and my family would, it was a special occasion. Our Blockbuster closed down in 2011 and had a big blow out sell.
So far in my town a Movieland USA still exists (barely) and a Family Video which still does decent business.
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