Yeah, here in the U.S. at Blockbuster you would get a clear plastic case that held the game cartridge and that was it. They must have still kept some of the original boxes in their storage though, because I bought a used copy of Mega Man X for SNES from Blockbuster and it came in it's original box, but with no manual.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 4 points 7 hours ago

I'm willing to bet it varied by employee diligence. I think it's much less likely to be a company policy of not giving out the manuals to renters and more likely to be that they didn't quit renting the game after somebody failed to return the manual.

[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago

Same for Hollywood Video. I don't think you ever got manuals. At least not the ones near me.