I never seen any PC games for rent, only for consoles. Is there any law or license forbids this?

There are certainly no laws that prevent this.

It's easy to pirate PC games given a game disk. It's much harder to pirate a console game given a console game disk.

There was a vaporware product called "The Phantom" that was going to be a PC game rental machine. Basically, the idea was that you would buy a Phantom and you could rent PC games in a "secure" way such that piracy would be "impossible". That product never came to be.

-me

I've only been to one rental store which carried PC games. This was back in, umm, 1996 while I still had DOS/Win3.1 and a 66mhz DX2. The store eventually folded (not sure why -- I doubt PC software piracy had a major effect) and since then the PC rental landscape has been barren.

AFAIK, there are no laws prohibiting rental of PC games. Perhaps publishers are in agreement with rental companies not to allow PC games for rent?

I think it is probably because
a) too many compatibility problems with PC, due to it being open architecture.
b) PC games were generally more complex (need a manual) so not really suitable for short term rental.

There was a shop in my hometown about 10 years ago that rented PC games like The 7th Guest and Wrath of the Gods. They got sued by the makers of these games for promoting piracy, so they stopped renting them.

you can get fixes so you dont need the cd. Its just to easy.

Most libraries have software available, including games.

A search for Ubisoft at my local library gives:

Chessmaster [electronic resource] : 10th edition.
San Francisco, CA : Ubisoft, c2004.

Secret of the Silver Earring [electronic resource] / inspired by the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
San Francisco, CA : Ubisoft, c2004.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3. Raven shield [electronic resource]
[Morrisville, NC] : Red Storm Entertainment/UBI Soft, c2003.


Own it
Prince of Persia : the sands of time. [electronic resource]
San Francisco, CA : Ubisoft Entertainment, c2003.


Destroyer command : WWII naval combat simulator. [electronic resource]
[San Fransicso, CA] : Ubi Soft, c2002.


Dogz 5 [electronic resource]
San Francisco, CA : Ubi Soft Entertainment, c2002.


Catz 5 [electronic resource]
San Francisco, CA : Ubi Soft Entertainment, c2002.

Own it
The Settlers fourth edition [electronic resource]
San Francisco, CA : Ubi Soft Entertainment, c2001.

... a whole lot more

Another search, "Computer games -- software" pulls up 1750 resources. Sorted by date, there are 4 pages (38 games) that have (c) 2005 on them. These few stand out:

* Age of Empires III has 21 copies and 4 holds on it.
* Sims 2: Holiday edition has 13 copies and 2 holds
* Star Wars, Jedi knight. Jedi academy has 27 copies and 3 holds
* LEGO Star Wars : the video game has 34 copies checked out with four on hold. (I haven't heard anything about this one, but it look hilarious from their web site.

.. And I just saw a few other games that I think I'll go get for a while.