I envy folks who had good opportunities for game rentals.
Growing up I had a local, independent video store in walking distance from my house. Their game section was pretty small. I rented Super Smash Bros over and over and only ever gave it back when someone was on the wait list. Eventually I rented Paper Mario, which I loved, but couldn't finish in time before I had to return it. By the time I was able to rent it again, my save was deleted. I remember another time when both of these games were spoken for I rented Yoshi's Story. I remember thinking it was very weird and offputting. Eventually the business closed and sold all their movies and games for $1 and I didn't get any of them in time.
When we moved, there was a regional chain in town with the worst selection imaginable. Video stores were already on the downturn and this chain routinely ran sales where you could buy their inventory outright, but they didn't have a system to make sure they had at least one of something left over. So if you wanted to rent The Lord of the Rings the only DVD they had left was The Two Towers. If you wanted Pirates of the Caribbean, too bad. They only had the third one. Their game section was pitiful and was almost exclusively sports games.