Word is circulating that game rental-by-mail operation GameFly has a new policy regarding sending back one of their Microsoft Xbox 360 discs with Xbox-induced scratches on it.  You may recall how some gamers have reported that the Xbox 360 scratching game discs during play.  Now GameFly is giving their customers one chance to scratch a disc without financial penalty.  Send back a damaged Xbox 360 game and you'll get a warning.  Do it again and you'll have the pay the replacement costs.

I find this to be surprisingly fair, all things considered.  I've been a GameFly subscriber for several months now and I've never been sent a damaged disc or game pak.  I'm assuming the company has high standards regarding the quality of materials it sends out to customers, and this assumption is based on my own personal experience.  When I used to rent from the local video store I was always finding that the discs I'd rented looked as if someone had been chewing on them.  Kudos to GameFly for making a point to enforce that continued level of quality.  As for Microsoft and the issue of releasing a game console that can damage discs during normal play, well... that's a soapbox for another day.