Blockbuster Video leaving OKC Market. Store closing start mid feb

[Jesseda]

Just found out that allthe blockbusters in the okc are closing in the next 2 months.. I am not surprised by it but its sad that they are no more.

[ShiroiHikari]

They should've run a better business, then.

Sorry. I had nothing but bad experiences with Blockbuster so I'm not all that sorry to see them go.

[GaryOKC6]

They should've run a better business, then.

Sorry. I had nothing but bad experiences with Blockbuster so I'm not all that sorry to see them go.

Good riddence. I dropped my blockbuster membership 3 months ago. They closed the stores in my area and then acted like they had stores 8 miles away thet would serve me the same. Oh really? I switched to redbox. There are 5 of them with in a mile of me. I reserve them on the internet and pick them up. Oh did I mention that it costs half as much now. All I can say about Blockbuster is.......seeeeeee yaaaaaaa!

[venture]

The Blockbuster by mail service was pretty good and I always enjoyed the instore exchanges. However, I've since replaced them by just getting Showtime, HBO and Starz with their on demand/online options that covers pretty much anything I would want.

[jn1780]

Good riddence. I dropped my blockbuster membership 3 months ago. They closed the stores in my area and then acted like they had stores 8 miles away thet would serve me the same. Oh really? I switched to redbox. There are 5 of them with in a mile of me. I reserve them on the internet and pick them up. Oh did I mention that it costs half as much now. All I can say about Blockbuster is.......seeeeeee yaaaaaaa!

Its simply of case of having your business model become outdated and not adapting fast enough. I'm sure Coinstar (Redbox) can employee the same number of people that it takes to keep 1 or 2 Blockbuster stores open and keep half of the city's Redboxes going. I wonder how many technicians and suppliers Coinstar employs here?

[kswright29]

A Roku box with Netflix, Vudu, and Hulu are the way to go for me. No driving, no returns, watch when ever you want. I love that thing.

[BBatesokc]

I still visited Blockbuster from time-to-time at SE 44/Shields. They usually had some sort of special going on and lots of $.99 movies. However, the 7-11 across the street often had the same movies I wanted and it was just more convenient.

I agree, they were king when VHS was around and remained dominant until RedBox, and online streaming caught on. Too bad they didn't adapt fast enough or see it coming or they could have remained king.

[bombermwc]

I didn't realize there were any left....i guess that's a good example of how little people visit them these days.

[SoonerDave]

Its amazing to me to have seen the birth, maturation, and now, ultimate demise of an entire industry in just the span of about 30 years. Blockbuster is a dying dinosaur, and I'm amazed they've stayed open this long. I think physical media as a distribution mechanism for digital content, aside perhaps from the desire to own a given title, is simply going away IMHO.

[GaryOKC6]

A Roku box with Netflix, Vudu, and Hulu are the way to go for me. No driving, no returns, watch when ever you want. I love that thing.

I have a Roku with Netflix as well and I really love it. For me that was the beginning of my love affair with Blockbuster. I liked being able to return my rentals to the store and reorder online with Blockbuster. Now that the removed that element. There is no reason to keep the blockbuster membership. I had become friends with the local BB store personnel and they were always telling me horror stories about working for blockbuster. They did not value their employees much at all.

[RadicalModerate]

Its amazing to me to have seen the birth, maturation, and now, ultimate demise of an entire industry in just the span of about 30 years. Blockbuster is a dying dinosaur, and I'm amazed they've stayed open this long. I think physical media as a distribution mechanism for digital content, aside perhaps from the desire to own a given title, is simply going away IMHO.

I still recall a long discussion my brother and I had, many, many years ago, when video rentals were in their infancy and "the current big thing." The gist of the conversation was that movie theaters would have to make some monumental changes in order to survive. We talked about how they could build plush new theaters--like those in the olden days, rather than the little tacky viewing rooms in multi-plexes. We wondered just how large the screens could get and how much the sound systems could be improved. We thought about them having actual good food . . . and even adult beverages (such as those we were enjoying during our discussion! =)

Apparently, the same conversation was taking place among people with the backing, the drive and the fortitude to actually do something with the idea.

Although--thanks to Netflix--we almost never go out to the movies, I salute those visionaries who were able to transform a concept into reality.

(Frankly, I thought all of the Blockbuster rental locations were already closed . . . are they getting rid of the "Blue Boxes" as well?)

[Anonymous.]

Although RedBox is still fairly popular, it has a short life span.

The way of the movie and tv world is switching to online streaming.


DVDs and discs in general will be a thing of the past soon, if not already.

[zookeeper]

Times change and Blockbuster didn't, but I have a lot of happy memories of taking the kids to Blockbuster. It was always fun to walk the aisles and see all the latest in VHS tape. My daughter called it The Blue Ticket Store ----- it did have a great logo. Now just memories, but they were mostly good.

[BBatesokc]

Although RedBox is still fairly popular, it has a short life span.

The way of the movie and tv world is switching to online streaming.


DVDs and discs in general will be a thing of the past soon, if not already.

Yes and no. There is still a very significant population that will continue to rely on physical disks for movies as opposed to streaming. RedBox knows this and while streaming will be the preferred option, it will still be some time before the RedBox on the corner is obsolete IMO.

[Pete]

I recently gave their by mail program a shot on a one month free trial.

The whole thing was a disaster. Sent me wrong discs, didn't properly track what I had returned and in the end tried to charge me for a disc I had returned weeks before.

I was shocked how badly that part of their business is run and can't imagine why anyone would choose them over Netflix.

[SoonerDave]

Yes and no. There is still a very significant population that will continue to rely on physical disks for movies as opposed to streaming. RedBox knows this and while streaming will be the preferred option, it will still be some time before the RedBox on the corner is obsolete IMO.

Agree completely. There will always be a time when I prefer to have physical media for certain titles available. The price may not always be $9.99 as it is now, because the volume of that kind of media will likely slow, but I think it will be there. Streaming can be affected by so many factors - cost, availability, bandwidth, who knows what else. As an example, I'm a huge fan of what I consider to be a classic 1972 comedy with Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neal titled "What's Up, Doc," and they released a 30th anniversary BluRay for it last year. No one I knew of had it streaming, but it was available locally for about $10-15 as I recall, so I snapped it up. I think there are plenty of fans of those kinds of movies that will keep physical media as at least a component of the business. Maybe not the major player anymore, but a component.

[ShiroiHikari]

Netflix streaming (or any other streaming service for that matter) is not currently a good replacement for DVD/Blu-ray, since the content changes all the time and the selection is iffy (unless you LIKE bad movies). It's more like a replacement for cable TV than anything else (which is exactly how I use it).

What if you want to watch a movie and your internet isn't working? What if you live in the boonies and can't stream things with your crappy satellite internet? What if you just really like to collect movies? For these reasons, I think physical media will be around for a while.

[Anonymous.]

While physical media will most likely always be around, cloud storage and digital copies are the future.

Some of us are already at the point of "what movie do you want to watch?" And open a cheap movie file stored on a cheap harddrive of a cheap computer that will stream directly to the television which is also now becoming relatively cheap. Digital storage is cheap and easy - it only makes senese that this is the direction we go, and it is happening pretty quick IMO.


Blu Ray players and the like are nice and all, but will simply be the VCRs in 20 years.



In regards to living far away from quality internet, well - that is the price you pay for being an outlier; poor internet service for a dozen people in a rural Oklahoma town is the last demographic on corporation's minds.

[jn1780]

Redbox will still be around until streaming movie rentals are cheap like Redbox is.

[SoonerDave]

While physical media will most likely always be around, cloud storage and digital copies are the future.

Some of us are already at the point of "what movie do you want to watch?" And open a cheap movie file stored on a cheap harddrive of a cheap computer that will stream directly to the television which is also now becoming relatively cheap. Digital storage is cheap and easy - it only makes senese that this is the direction we go, and it is happening pretty quick IMO.


Blu Ray players and the like are nice and all, but will simply be the VCRs in 20 years.



In regards to living far away from quality internet, well - that is the price you pay for being an outlier; poor internet service for a dozen people in a rural Oklahoma town is the last demographic on corporation's minds.

With all due respect, I think this characterization is really harsh. I can buy a decent BluRay player for about $70 and never worry another second about streaming problems. And to suggest that "bad bandwidth in a rural Oklahoma town" is the only consideration, well, no offense, but it sounds really bigoted and naive, and I'd like to think you didn't mean it that way.

I drop $50+ a month on a nice Internet connection, but that's not cheap, and not everyone can afford or justify that kind of money ($600/yr) on an ongoing basis just so they can be part of the trendy "We're the cool kids, we stream video over the 'Net" crowd. " Internet providers are working overtime to extract ridiculous amounts of money on the data streaming, doubling and even triple-charging for the same bytes just because they pass through more than one device.

I've got Amazon streaming through my BluRay player, and have the option of NetFlix through the xbox, but the ability to plop in a DVD or BluRay of my own choosing at the time of my choosing is still a relevant consideration in my book. And I'm not a bumpkin in a rural town, either. And the Amazon streaming has been problematic at times, too.

I have lived long enough to know there aren't any panaceas. And the fact that someone doesn't embrace my personal panacea doesn't make them a rube. We're going to have BluRays, DVD's, Streaming, on-demand, satellite, and similar options with their own niches for a long time to come.

[BBatesokc]

Personally, the fact that most people can't seem to understand the concept of pre-reserve your movies on RedBox.com and then go pick them up is all the proof I need that a large portion of our population is not ready for us to abandon physical DVD's.

I can't stand going to the RedBox's on the south side (can't speak for the north side). There is always a line 5 deep and the person picking their movies is usually on their phone reading the movie synopsis to some degenerate on the other end of the phone.

Reserve first, pick up later = save everyone lots of time.

[BG918]

Its amazing to me to have seen the birth, maturation, and now, ultimate demise of an entire industry in just the span of about 30 years.

I think we'll see this happen more and more, and at an increasingly rapid pace. Entire industries could boom and bust within 10-15 years.

[Snowman]

I recently gave their by mail program a shot on a one month free trial.

The whole thing was a disaster. Sent me wrong discs, didn't properly track what I had returned and in the end tried to charge me for a disc I had returned weeks before.

I was shocked how badly that part of their business is run and can't imagine why anyone would choose them over Netflix.

That is amazing that even now they still could not get that right, the failing of their redbox like machines made more sense since they clearly pushed it out before the machines were ready due to both readbox and netflix growth meant they had to do something fast and once a vending machine is produced it is harder to correct physical flaws than software ones but it should be easier to fix something going on in a warehouse and the mail option has been around long enough there is no excuse for that.

Though given how many mom and pop stores they put out of business, I do not have a lot of sympathy for the company itself.

[BBatesokc]

...Though given how many mom and pop stores they put out of business, I do not have a lot of sympathy for the company itself.

Don't understand why anyone would hold that against them - I certainly don't. They started 'mom and pop' enough with a single store and did it well enough to grow to over 50,000 employees at one time. Doing it right doesn't make you the bad guy - even if eventually you get it wrong.

[Anonymous.]

I have the lowest option available for Cox internet and I download and stream movies all the time. In fact it cost me nothing as basic TV and internet are included in my rent and anything extra is on me.

I don't watch TV except a few shows, and all of them are available the next day online, after they air - in full, in HD. So really I have no use for normal TV other than away Thunder Games (which can also be found online if you search hard enough). Take a look online, most of the major broadcast networks have full length episodes of your shows with only web ads, if any at all. And these are only seconds long, not minutes like live TV. Notice televisions now have ethernet ports, eventually you will have netflix, hulu, youtube, facebook, twitter, insert website here on a TV you buy in a store - only thing needed is your login information.

To be real, cable companies are cheating Americans with subpar internet and overcharging - they know the future is internet, it is their future flagship - TV Cable is gone. Blu Ray and DVDs will also end accordingly.


I am not implying that physical discs will die, there will always be people who want the 'convenience' of putting a object into a slot and pressing play (that's what she said?). But present day technology pretty much guarantees less and less of this. Honestly I cannot believe people still go to the store and "buy a CD". And before you claim how RedBox is so cheap and easy, you most likely already have internet (so it's paid for) and now you don't have to drive and wait in line behind a bunch of teenagers who borrowed mom's car on a saturday night.