Netflix Creates Qwikster For DVD Only Business

Frankie70 writes "Netflix CEO Reed Hastings just dropped a bombshell. In the wake of a rapid decline in Netflix's stock price last week, Hastings is taking a bold step by separating the DVD and video streaming services. The DVD-by-mail service will now be called Qwikster, and the streaming service will maintain the Netflix brand."

This isn't the Yahoo! Stocks boards

[Rogerborg]

So how about an article that documents the effect on us, the customers, not on speculators and investors?

Here, let me get that for you:

Customers can still subscribe to both, but the two sites will not be integrated anymore. [...] Separating the businesses will also force customers to make a choice

Crib notes: squeal, piggies, squeal.

Actual Post

[clinko]

Here's the actual blog post from Netflix instead of the Techcrunch blogspam that quotes it:

http://blog.netflix.com/2011/09/explanation-and-some-reflections.html [netflix.com]

Games

[feidaykin]

Missing from this submission is the news that Netflix/Qwikster will now offer game rentals. I suppose that's not a big deal to everyone. I'm sure gamefly isn't happy about it, but competition should be great right? Personally I rarely if ever rent games, since I tend to play a demo first (and if there isn't one, pirate) and if I like the game I purchase it through Steam, so that I can get up-to-date patches, play online, and have that warm fuzzy feeling of supporting the developers. I wish the industry was more receptive to demos, because they do work, for good games at least.

For example (an off-topic gaming story follows here), I recently watched X-Men: First Class and the American/Soviet ships primed for battle with each other put me in a Red Alert mood. I had never played the third game in the franchise, because when it came out I was raiding heavily in WoW and not playing anything else. Anyway, I went to check the price on Steam to find out if I had to get a pirated version as a sampler first, and to my surprise there was a free demo. The demo only offered two missions, but after spending an hour messing around with the various units in one mission I decided it was certainly worth the $20. Moral here is, game demos make sales, at least if the game is any good. But it seems to me like the industry simply expects you to rent the game if you want a sample, or else pay the full price, which is likely one of the driving forces of game piracy. Obviously the whole "free of charge" thing is a major draw for pirates, but I can imagine I'm not the only person who buys games, but won't waste $20-$50 until I'm certain it's something I will get several hours out of.

Re:What an unfortunate name...

[EvilStein]

Are you sure about that?

http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/18/uh-oh-qwikster-already-has-a-lively-twitter-account-but-its-not-owned-by-netflix/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+(TechCrunch) [techcrunch.com]