In the age of digital media, it can be hard to remember that there was a time, items and entertainment weren’t as easily accessible as today. How many people remember days spent calling a store or an outlet to see if they had a copy of the game?

 How easy it is to forget, going from store to store hoping and praying that your favorite retailer had a copy of your favorite game. Now, with the advent of stores like Netflix, Amazon, and Blockbuster, acquiring any media is at the touch of your fingertips.

In the age of such convenience, can you ship pc game media via mail? The short answer is yes, and there are a plethora of options such as Amazon, Gamefly, and Gamestop, where gamers can get all of their game media shipped directly to their door.

Amazon

“CEO, entrepreneur born in 1964 Jeffrey, Jeffrey Bezos.” The brainchild of what is arguably one of the world’s richest men, Amazon is a Titan of industry. The monster of a website ships over 1.6 million packages per week. With how often new games are launched, it’s safe to say that more than a quarter of that is video games. However, for P.C. gamers, one might ask why ship a game in the first place. With options like Steam or the Epic Games store, what possible need could I have to get my games delivered? The answer is simple, exclusivity.

Amazon as a retailer offers many exclusivity deals for the discerning customer. Many games like Red Dead Redemption and Cyberpunk2077, have offered deals on exclusive items, only available through Amazon. When the original Persona 5 first launched in 2017, the special collector’s edition steel case was only available through a physical pre-order from Amazon. This means for a collector like myself the only way to get a key piece of memorabilia for my favorite game, was through Amazon. Even this says nothing of some of the savings you receive when ordering through certain Amazon retailers.

GAMEFLY

While it’s nowhere near as powerful as its Heyday, Gamefly is still a viable option if you want to get video games shipped to you through the mail. Similar to Netflix in its early years, Gamefly is typically a subscription service, where you can rent video games. Subscribers select which video game titles they desire and within 2-5 business days, video games are mailed to them through first-class mail.

These days, Gamefly operates like any other online game retailer. Though the long-time rental service now has a bigger market in used games than fresh off-the-shelf games. Still, if physical P.C. games are what you’re looking for, you can’t go wrong with a deal or two from Gamefly.

Gamestop

Ah yes! Gamestop! Once the bastion of gamers everywhere, now the enemy of all day traders and legitimate stock market entrepreneurs. Even before the dreaded meme stock controversy of 2021, Gamestop was still on the tongue of most people on social media, for their customer service standards and their awful treatment of employees. Truth is, even though by their very namesake they do provide the service of shipping games to you by mail, Gamestop is horribly inefficient. P.C. games are in an even worse off state, as they don’t sell you the physical game itself, but a card containing a code to redeem the game on steam.

Media mail v.s. Media by mail.

In America, the United States postal service offers a tier of shipment called ‘media mail’. This tier of shipping is typically reserved for media materials, that work as resources for teaching or education. Video games do not fall into this bracket of media. However, many retailers and distributors use this tier of shipping to get video games to customers. This is illegal by United States postal service standards, and anyone shipping customers games through this method runs the risk of being persecuted through American law.

Pros and Cons

One of the major pros of getting your games delivered is that you own the game. Many developers and video game publishers in the modern era, don’t tell you that when you purchase a game digitally, you don’t actually own the game, you’re simply leasing the ability to play it from the publisher. When you get the game physically shipped to you by mail, that game is your personal property. No video game publisher or company can come to claim what’s already yours.

A con to this though, is you have no control over the physical hiccups that come from any postal service or delivery service. Setting aside the fact that the product you see advertised on the page when you click checkout or purchase, may not be the package that arrives on your doorstep. When you factor in unforeseen circumstances like the dishonesty of certain drivers, pandemics such as covid nineteen or America’s growing porch pirate epidemic, it can be easy to get dissuaded from ever ordering anything online.