On Wednesday, Blockbuster Inc. announced that in keeping with previously disclosed plans to launch an online video game rental service by summer, that they would launch a pilot program in the Cleveland area beginning June 30. Blockbuster is planning to expand the program nationwide by the end of the year, which would make it the only by-mail service to offer both movie and video game rentals.

The Cleveland pilot will be open to all Blockbuster Total Access and Blockbuster By Mail subscribers. Subscribers who choose to participate in the pilot test will be able to opt-in to add the latest Wii, PS2, PS3, and Xbox 360 games to their current online rental queues for an incremental monthly fee, which will be charged only during billing cycles in which they have actually rented games. For a set fee, subscribers can rent as many games as they want per month, with one game out at a time. Game rentals will count towards the number of rentals a subscriber is allowed under their current online subscription plan, and Total Access subscribers will receive the same in-store exchange benefits with their by-mail game rentals as they do movies under their current plan.