Friends and Videogames

Is it just me or do you have any friends who always want to borrow a game? Today or back in the day, it seems like some of that has stayed the same. For instance one of my friends let's me borrow one of his crappy little games that he just left over and 2 days later he comes looking through your videogames like a free rental store. Now, I don't really like to loan people any of my games mainly because of past experiences and the fact that it's already a struggle to manage to buy the games that I can get as it. Even though this is probably one of my oldest friends, I feel like he would of probably left it scratched up or something and wouldn't treat it as it is. He also got one of my games stolen years ago.

I only really trust one person to loan games to because he treats them exactly like I would. I also didn't like the fact that he just finish getting off his high at the time when he borrowed it, but I didn't want to say no and sound like I was being snobbish because I borrowed 2 of his games (I didn't really ask for it) and we go way back. Hopefully I can get the game back in the condition I gave it to him and nothing bad happens. Does anybody have any stories or similar problems as the one I have?

I pretty much feel the same way that you do... I'd only let certain people borrow things that are important to me. I really don't like being put in the situation either...

When I was little I let people borrow Master System games a never got them back. That was the final straw for me.

Hahaha same here. I remember in kindergarten, I let this one guy borrow some Atari games I didn't get them back till the year after. This one guy I used to exchange games with in junior high but I was the one who went to his house to make the exchanges. Even recently, I let this one guy borrow some old MK games and he had them for months and kept forgetting to return them to me. So I try not to let people borrow my crap when I can.

I used to be the guy who borrow mad shit from people. I feel bad about it. However, I never mistreated anybody's shit. The reason why I borrowed people's shit hardcore was due to the fact that I had no money at all. When I got a job and started buying shit of my own, I felt good lending my stuff to people until:

I lent out my Beastie Boy's album, Hello Nasty (brand new), and got it returned with the cardboard case totally frayed to shit and the CD covered in rings. Now I'm really cautious, but most of my friends buy what they want so it doesn't even matter.

My rule is: you borrow something, I borrow something of equal or greater value. That way, I'm sure to get my stuff back.

I only lend my games to two friends though. They've always taken care of them which is why they can still borrow from me.

I really hate having to be a prick about loaning out games, so I'm often fairly permissive if it's someone I know. But I've still had several games over the years damaged, lost, or gone from people abruptly leaving town. One thing I don't do when loaning out games is give them the original case or instructions - no sense in giving the person I'm lending to the oppertunity to fuck those up as well. I just give them the game in a generic jewel case. Laying down ground rules when you lend out games to a friend is no promise, though. I've had stuff like my CV:SotN disk come back looking like it had been humping a stucco wall. It's not that hard to not scratch a disk.

I hate having to act like a stuck-up jerk whose obsessed with his posessions whenever a friend wants to borrow a game, but they need to understand that I'm not the type of guy who leaves his game CDs lying naked on the ground.

First off, Marvel Man, lemmee say, killer avatar. :)

Second, I learned early about loaning people things, so I've never really lent out any of my games to anyone, except 3 good friends I have that take care of their games and keep them in pristine condition. No one else even bothers to ask me, cuz' they know how I am.

Thing I hate is when you play your games at someone else's house, and they have the ones they own sitting around out of the case upside-down or even face down on something, but yet they think that you are being selfish when you refuse to let them borrow yours.

I solved the whole issue years ago by not having any friends....

I'm pretty liberal about letting people borrow games from me. As long as I know I can trust the person, I have no problems doing it.

I lend nothing. Okay, I do occassionally loan out my cartridges but never anything destructible or that may have handling issues. My goods stay very clean that way.

Pa

On a related note, I stopped lending out my DVD's after 2 never came back. I only let someone borrow one if I know them really well and they are close enough that I can go and get them back if I need to (humans are lazy and forgetful bastards).

One of my friends was the "Lord of the Borrowers". He'd have that shit for months. But 98% of the time you'd get it back in the shape it was in when you gave it to him. Often times it would be played, then put on the shelf and forgotten about.

There is really only one or two people that I let borrow my games and such. They know of my obsession with gaming and they know if there is a single speck of dust on my discs there is going to be bloodshed. :)

Other than those two, I've had bad experiences with "friends" before.

- Let someone borrow my Princess Mononoke DVD. When it was returned, it was scratched to hell. Had to buy another one.

- Let someone borrow my Grandia II music CD. Returned with a huge gash in it. Ubi Soft was nice enough to send me another copy.

- Let someone borrow my Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters for the Genny. He ended up letting someone else borrow the game. He moved away.

- Let someone borrow one of my ODCM demo discs. (with the Shenmue movie) Returned a month later with an infinite number of scratches AND the sleeve was all chewed up and bent.

Wanted to borrow my FF IX some time later. Didn't happen. :bang:

That's all I remember as of now. Friends tend to suck. :bang:

I have about 5 people who I trust with my games. I tend to be a neat freak/perfectionst by nature, so if I lend something out, it BETTER be returned in the same condition. It's all about trust and respect for ones property.

Since my friends are casual gamers, their logic is "if you have so many systems, what not lend me at least one and a couple games"? As soon as I got a PS2, people wanted to borrow my DC- apparently I wouldn't be needing it anymore. Fuck no. Sure, they make me feel like an anal-retentive asshole when I don't lend stuff out, but the majority of them don't own one disc that isn't scratched to hell. I'll lend stuff to one or two of my friends who know how to take care of discs, but that's about it.

My friends are extreme casual gamers so there isn't that much that they can borrow really, and if they could I guess I wouldnt let them. It sucked when you where younger and people borrowed nes games and ruined the box.

I thought this thread was about Friends...:(

I just tell them to fuck off.

They're your games, and if they pull that: "I lent you 2 games, now I should get some?" you should say: "So you only lent me those 2 games to get a favor in return then, huh?"

See what happens. They're you're games in the end, and you're property. You wouldn't let somebody borrow your car because they left theirs at your house while they were drunk, would you?

This past summer, I let one friend borrow my Dreamcast and another friend borrow my PS2. I got my PS2 back last week.

The reason I let my friend borrow my PS2 was because he let me borrow his Playstation with 50+ games for a couple of months a couple of years back.

Dunno why I let the other friend borrow the DC :/

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Originally posted by Shinobi128

- Let someone borrow my Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters for the Genny. He ended up letting someone else borrow the game. He moved away.

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That's one thing that I have never understood, nor will I ever...what goes through someone's head that they it is okay to lend out something that doesn't belong to them.

Reminds of me an incident - Remember the issue of EGM that had a drawing of Kitana, Mileena, Baraka, Kung Lao, and Kintaro from MK II on the cover w/ a yellow background? Well, I loaned it to this guy so he could read it during one period in school..and we'd agreed...I get my book back in 55 minutes, meet me here. Not hard, right? Wrong.

Okay, so after class, I go to the designated spot to get my book, and what does he tell me? "My friend wasn't done with it, so he's keeping it overnight so he can finish drawing the cover." Oh, I blew up and chewed him out something proper. Honestly, I was red-eyed and the guy was honestly concerned that I'd kick his ass. That led to one of my only incidents of being late to class ever....I made him take me to the guys next class and get the book back. The kid to me, "I don't know what class he's in". I remember yelling, "you better damn well get to fucking looking". Here it is, 20 minutes after class began, and I'm trailing him as we go from class to class peeking in the window to see if he could find the person he lent it to. He didn't though, but he knew I was serious about getting it back. Luckily for him, the guy brought the book back in the same condition in which I loaned it out.

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Originally posted by J2dfanboy
It sucked when you where younger and people borrowed nes games and ruined the box.

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I never loaned mine out for that reason. ;)

I have one friend that I have no idea on earth why I keap loaning him things. We are really close and I guess I keap thinking "man its been a year sense he did so and so, maybe he will have grown up and be able to get back to me <insert prized thing here> in the condition I loaned it" WRONG

I loaned him my bootleg copy of Transformers the movie in middle school. It litterly took him forever to get it back to me, wait no, after forever I went to his house and had to take it out of his grubby little hands.

I loaned him the same bootleg copy years later. Its highschool, surely he is grown up and can get it back to me? WRONG. He tries to copy the copy and f^cks up both copies.

Later I loaned him a HARD back copy of the chronicals of Amber. Sure, he can get this back to me in its orginal condition, its a hard back for Chriss sake. Wrong again, he gave it back to me and he had turned the black cover white. He must be the only person in the world that bends hard back books covers back when they read. He did buy me a new copy though (after I almost went MAD).

Then a year later I loaned him a copy C:SOTN. -_- I got it back this year (im in college now) scratched and no backing to the case. Just a scratched disk and the cover to the manual.

Maybe you're just a glutton for punishment. Tell you what, why don't you throw some of that wasted money over in my direction? :)

There's only a few people that I loan games out to. I have one friend who borrows tons of stuff from people and never bothers to play it. When the time comes to give it back, he gets furious when you want your stuff back like it belongs to him now. Yet when he lets you use something, he will come over your house personally (a herculean task in itself) the next day to get it back. I only have one friend now (a certain board member by the name of Evil Setsuo) who never seems to give me my stuff back the same way I gave it to him. I got my DC back after 3 god damn months, and when he gave me my Mark of the Wolves, it was in a generic case, and he swore to god that's how I gave it to him. If you're reading this, that's a crock of shit!

Whats worse then people being complete idiots and not respecting other peoples stuff is the fact that you guys would have these jack asses for friends...

This guy wasn't really a friend.

There was this guy named Roach in our neighborhood. I traded him various games. I thought he was okay until this one time. I lent the guy Strider in exchange for Mega Man2. After a few months I wanted my copy of Strider back. All of a sudden, dude gets scarce. What happened? DUde lent my copy of Strider to my neigbour for Chip and Dale Rescue rangers. And here's where I figured out what Roach was really doing.

Roach went around the neigborhood trading games with OTHER PEOPLE'S games. If you wanted to get your game back you had to go all around town finding the person he lent your game to and the person whos game you have. He didn't even own Mega Man 2; it was some other guy's. He had this huge trading network where he was the key. Only he knew exactly where everybody's games were, and he benefited from it.

You could never go to his house and get your game (or beat him up) because he gave a vague description of where he lived ("the house with the big garage").

heh that reminds me I've had BenT's Third Strike for MONTHS...I need to return it to him. He's one of five people in the entire world that I would ever in my life lend my games to. Others that aren't in that five know that I AM an anal retentive bastard and thus wouldn't want to borrow a game from me because of that! But generally I'll make an exception if said person happens to lend ME a game. And you better believe I'll hold them to replacement fees if anything were to happen to the game. I have entirely too many games to keep track of who's borrowing what, so I generally limit it to one game, one person at a time. Damn friend's got my Super Metroid...I knew I shouldn't have shown him how cool Prime is. =/ That's what I get for showing off.

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Originally posted by Briscobold
If you wanted to get your game back you had to go all around town finding the person he lent your game to and the person whos game you have.

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Originally posted by DHG Otaku
I have entirely too many games to keep track of who's borrowing what, so I generally limit it to one game, one person at a time.

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Man, it's a bitch to go chasing around stuff that's YOURS. I've done that once before, again, learned my lesson right quick.

Small tip: Don't loan anything out unless you know where the person lives, at least.

DHG Otaku: That's about how I used to do it. I'd write it down, and make people sign for it, even :)

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Originally posted by FighterX

Small tip: Don't loan anything out unless you know where the person lives, at least.

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Thing is, we were, like, 12 (or 11; I forget), so we never thought about finding his house. All we cared about was getting out games back. Also, even though he gave the street name, the street was a a long road, so knocking on every single door until we found him (an idea that popped into our heads at the time) wasn't a realistic option.

Roach was also caught sneaking into somebody's house trying to "borrow games." Luckily, the people whose house it was were sitting at the dinner table eating when Roach stepped through the kitchen screen door. How anyone can live that down is beyond me.

ah.. really bad experience with this kind of thing..

a long time ago, a good friend of mine lent me a game i was quite fond of, ninja gaiden II.
for some reason, i ended up letting some other kid at school borrow it in exchange for lending me...uh.. bad dudes. :bang:

little did i realize that it was the last day of the school year, and i never saw that damned kid again, or my friend's copy of ninja gaiden II..
so i had to go to the store to buy him a new copy (he never knew about the whole incident because he got his game back as expected)..

essentially, i paid about $50 for bad dudes..

I'M BAD!!....ugh. :(

actually it wasn't the worst game i've played.

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Originally posted by johnk_
essentially, i paid about $50 for bad dudes..

I'M BAD!!....ugh. :(

actually it wasn't the worst game i've played.

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Well, that certainly was the worst voice sample I've ever heard on any system, bar none. If you've heard it, then you know what I'm talking about. Sounds like someone with a severe case of strep throat recorded that sample while being choked.

Since I've made this point I haven't seen that dude since I loaned him Knockout Kings 2002. If I don't get it tomorrow it's gone be some shit.

I've loaned out games before, had some bad experiences, and now I don't loan them out anymore.

Most people don't know how to treat other peoples stuff. Simple as that.

Its more like, since its not theirs, they don't give a damn about treating it badly, since they figure as long as you get it back everything's ok.

I guess I'm kinda THAT friend, but I usually trade games too, seems like lately we don't even remember which one of us owned what in the first place.

I don't mind letting friend's borrow games because they usually return them. I do mind, however, when the friend decides to put a shitload of my games and gear in their attic for storage and delays every time i ask him to return them.

I don't lend anyone anything. I've had some horrible experiences in the past…


-Donkey Kong 2 to a "friend" who returned it about 2/3 months after I asked for it back. I was surprised I ever got it back. Also, to be "funny," the fucking shithead set it atop my chair (which was upside down on the table... this was grade school), in such a position that it would fall 4/5 feet to the ground when I took the chair down.

-I remember I lent somebody my Mario stationary kit in kindergarten. Never got it back, well, aside from the mutilated ruler.

-I’ve lent a lot of stuff to this one kid. He’ll let me borrow anything of his, so for a while I felt bad to say no. Everything I lent came back scratched though. That kid just didn’t know how to take care of anything.


Some other stuff too. I stopped lending people stuff quite a while ago. If someone asks or hints towards borrowing something (EX: Oh hey… do you have “insert game”?) I just sort of mumble OK or change the topic and never bring it.