The Usability of Supply and Use

[flamesplash]

 Imagine there's a service that allows you to rent DVDs through the mail.   It lets you supply a list of movies you are interested in online and is 90% likely to always send you your first selection.   Let's call this service NetFlix.

Now Imagine there's a very similar service that let's you rent video games, and that they effectively copied

Comments

[anonymous]

Games and game demand are radically different from movies and movie demand. The demographic each caters to is wildly different as well. Therefore, the rental experience is going to be unique for each

[flamesplash]

Ah, I completely agree with you about them being different renting experiences.

Perhaps I was not clear, but my whole point was they are different, YET GameFly offers the exact same queuing system as NetFlix which is flawed in my opinion. The rest of the bit being about how and why the usability is different and how that should affect designing a queuing system.

I'm quite certain they just copied NetFlix and did no more.

[anonymous]

I do like your idea about having a separate queue with games you want to remember but otherwise I don't think there's anything terribly wrong with the existing one. I can't really think of a better way to do it.

[rknickme]

I think one solution to some of Shane's issues is for them to allow you to tag a game in your queue as a "must have". Once that game is at the top of the queue, the system would hold off on sending any other games until that game was available to send out. That way, you aren't getting all the lame games while your chances of getting that cool game continue to dwindle.