This is a guest article by Blake Sanders. Blake writes on tech issues at broadband comparison site Broadband Expert and specializes in high-speed Internet, cell phones, as well as all of the latest in wireless Internet provider news and information.

The long-time game rental company, GameFly, who send rented games through the mail to their customer’s houses, is planning to provide a new PC game rental service over a high-speed Internet connection. While it previously provided services similar to Direct2Drive’s online purchases that allowed downloading the game to your PC after buying it, the company is now planning to offer a downloadable rental service for PC games.

GameFly is planning the original closed beta launch for September 8, 2011 to test out their new PC game rental program. Once the testing is completed, the company expects that they will have a full version available for the general public in time for the holidays. The plan, according to GameFly’s co-founder Sean Spector, is that the they will launch one hundred games in their initial full version and then plan to continue adding new PC games to the system.

Though the digital rental offered is a relatively new idea for the company, it is not the first company to consider the option. GameTap is perhaps the most notable company offering a similar subscription-based platform for PC games. They offer customers different games via digital means for rental purposes as long as they become a member. GameFly differs from this company partly due to the availability of physical discs that customers might rent and the fact that the company does not have any plans to make a digital only option for customers.

Other services, such as OnLive or Gaikai Hit, might seem similar at first glance, though these services use high-speed Internet and cloud technology as a means of playing the game by streaming rather than providing a downloadable version of the game. As a result, players are able to start the game immediately. They also can play with limited available space. GameFly’s new rental service provides a game download rather than a live stream, meaning the computer needs enough space to play the game and the player must download the game before starting.

GameStop is another company that offers a similar service, though GameStop also takes a slightly different approach. At GameStop, beyond just purchasing the games new and used in the store, gamers can also buy a digital copy of the game. In this way, players buy the download code and use that to download the PC game from GameStop’s website via Impulse. The key difference is that while it is a digital copy of the game, players must buy the game code from a physical store before actually playing it.

GameFly’s new option to download game rentals does come with a catch. While it will become available to any member of the company, they do not plan on having a digital-only membership. This means that anyone who wants to take advantage of the downloadable rentals must also be a member of GameFly’s traditional rental program. If membership is canceled, downloaded games are also unavailable.

This particular catch makes the new rental program from GameFly more of an added value addition to existing members, instead of a means of attracting new customers who are only interested in PC games.

While GameFly does intend to release one hundred games at their initial launch, it is not yet clear what type of games the company plans to use during their launch. The commentary that it plans to provide games that run a gamut between young children and teens to adults in their mid-30s suggests that it might not offer options for the hardcore PC gamers during the initial beta testing and launch.

GameFly’s plan to release downloadable rentals is an inspired idea. It does have a few bugs to work out before it becomes appealing to a hardcore gamer, but once it works out the details, it might provide gamers with something new for their PC gaming experience.