So, why am I worried about a free Gamefly trial?

Well, I started playing video games with a Sears TeleGames unit in the late 1970s. That was the name under which Sears briefly sold the Atari 2600. While I was a master of Pong and later even developed some ability in Space Invaders (including discovering the “cheat” involving the toggling of the power switch), my video game skills have basically stalled since then.

I’ve been tempted to get back into the action, but aside from an occasional game of Madden football with my nephew and one failed effort at doing anything but wiping out stolen cars with an early version of Grand Theft Auto, I’ve resisted the allure of those awesome “next generation” game systems.

But now one of the little Lampsens is old enough to have the bug and the formerly video game-free tyke has three letters atop the list attached to the letter she’s sending to the North Pole: Wii.

So, it’s time for me to figure out how I’ll handle the kid’s upcoming stage as an obsessed gamer without going broke buying titles that would be used once and then shelved forever.

Enter GameFly.  It’s the NetFlix of video games.  They have over 5,000 game titles across a variety of platforms.  You add them to your “I want it” list and they send them to you in the mail, as they’re available.  For around $30 a month, you can get the games, play them until you’re tired of them and then send them back in the prepaid envelope.  When they get your return, they’ll send you the next item on your wishlist that they have in stock.

Pure genius.  No late fees.  No risk of sinking a fortune in a game that you don’t like.  Pretty reasonable cost per month, too, if the gamer in your house makes good use of the service.  Based on reviews, it sounds like Gamefly works just the way it should.

And the deal gets even sweeter once you find out that there’s a free Gamefly trial offer out there.  Free is always better.

Actually, there are two free Gamefly trial offers floating around.  One is a ten-day trial.  That’s better than paying full price, but ten days isn’t much time.  When you consider the back-and-forth time in mailing, it’s probably enough time to get one game, play it for a day or two and then send it back.  It’s worth doing if you know you’re going to set up an account anyway, but it isn’t the kind of offer that should blow your away.

There’s also a thirty day free Gamefly trial for people who already have Netflix and would like to try out gamefly.  That’s a much bigger and better deal for bargain hunters–assuming they do the Netflix thing already.

So, that leads us to the big question.  How do you get the free trial deal?

According to AskStudent.com, you can visit the Gamefly site and the use the promo code “BDMHWT4NJKRRW373″  to snag your free thirty days.

MoneySavingDeals.com has links to take advantage of the free ten-day deal, for those who aren’t part of the Netflix family.

RetailMeNot.com also has links to ten-day trial passes.

If you have one or more active video gamers in your house, signing up with Gamefly seems like a no-brainer to me.  It’s a great way to test titles before you buy or to just keep ‘em and beat ‘em instead of plunking down the bigger bucks to own your personal copies.

Netflix proved that the model works with movies.  There’s no reason it shouldn’t be just as handy with video games.