(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Video-on-demand and rental service Lovefilm has announced it is to stop offering video games to its customers, and will now focus solely on movies and TV.

The surprise news almost went unnoticed, with website Gamebrit first reporting rumours last week and Lovefilm only confirming the news via a peculiarly low key entry on their FAQ.

‘We are no longer offering games rental packages to either new customers, or those who wish to change from a non-games package,’ reads the message.

‘In order to give the best possible service that we can, we are looking to focus on our strength, which is providing the best selection of film and TV content for our customers, and making it available whenever and wherever you want it.’

There’s no more information to go on than that, and one can only speculate that Lovefilm feels the need to rent physical games by post will be greatly diminished in the next generation. Although you have to wonder whether they made this decision while still assuming the Xbox One would have its draconian anti-used game policies.

That may leave a chance of a reversal in policy, but even with a return to the status quo in the next gen it’s easy to imagine that gaming is a fairly small part of Lovefilm’s business.

Although it only operates in the UK, Germany and Scandinavia, Lovefilm is owned by Amazon – who is currently engaged in a bitter rivalry with Netflix and other video-on-demand services.

From that point of view it probably is true that the company wants to focus its efforts on TV and movies at the moment. The irony of course is that one of the primary means of accessing these services is via consoles, with all the current gen consoles, let alone the next gen machines, supporting both Lovefilm and Netflix.

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Slow death of boxed based gaming has started.
Thanks for posting this it pretty big news, curious how big the market was for loveflim.

I only ever buy games, I don't think I ever rented one except when around a friends house and it was his idea.

I would like to know how big the market was too, surely video games was one of the major selling points? Personally I believe they might be transitioning to next-gen games when they become more readily available and cheaper without drawing too much attention to themselves.

Soon as I heard about lovefilm I never looked back. Cannot beat a full year of access to hundreds of PS3 games including latest releases for just £57 (going halfs). Luckily I bought the full year instead of going monthly so I'm sorted till march next year.

It could be a loss maker I know a couple people who did scam the service.
That said some people who I know got some great value out of it was like PS+ in disc form.
Shame it was useful for some people also got movies on top.
Still no information on the real reason why.

Meh looks like they are cancelling all game rentals on August 8th even for exisiting customers.

Goodbye Lovefilm, hello Boomerangrentals.