Netflix To Offer Games With No Added Cost

On Tuesday the streaming service giant Netflix confirmed that it would be making its move into the world of gaming.

With the initial launch of the added service having a strong focus on mobile devices. Moreover, the integration of gaming would come at no extra cost to their subscribers.

The news came just days after the announcement that Netflix would be hiring former Oculus and EA executive Mike Verdu as its president of game development.

Mike Verdu

When speaking as to its future goals in gaming in the letter to its shareholders. Netflix referenced its prior experiments with interactive entertainment such as Black Mirror Bandersnatch and Carmen Sandiego.

Netflix on Games

Here is what Netflix had to say about gaming in the letter. The full financial document can be read here. 

“We’re also in the early stages of further expanding into games, building on our earlier efforts around interactivity (eg, Black Mirror Bandersnatch) and our Stranger Things games. We view gaming as another new content category for us, similar to our expansion into original films, animation, and unscripted TV. Games will be included in members’ Netflix subscription at no additional cost similar to films and series. Initially, we’ll be primarily focused on games for mobile devices. We’re excited as ever about our movies and TV series offering and we expect a long runway of increasing investment and growth across all of our existing content categories, but since we are nearly a decade into our push into original programming, we think the time is right to learn more about how our members value games.”

Credit: Netflix

How will it work

• The games will be bundled in for free with the main app, games will primarily be played on mobile devices to start. Then they will transition to televisions. 
• Netflix will have games that connect to current franchises, Stranger Things for example. You can search for Stranger Things and the series and the game will both pop-up.

The Numbers

Netflix hopes that the added gaming content will aid in subscriber retention. As the gaming announcement was released ahead of Netflix’s Q2 earnings report on Tuesday.

Wherein the streaming giant revealed that it had lost more than 400,000 subscribers in the US and Canada. “COVID has created some lumpiness in our membership growth,” the company said.

Credit: Netflix

This is the first time since 2019 that Netflix has lost subscribers in the US and Canada regions. Although they also reported gaining more than 7.5 million subscribers in two other countries during that same time frame.

Netflix closed out the second quarter with 209 million paid memberships and its total revenue standing at $7.3 billion.

The Competition

The earnings letter showed that Asia and the Pacific (APAC) represented two-thirds of Netflix’s growth last quarter. Regions of the world where the mobile market is king when it comes to gaming.

Netflix also stated in the letter that it was competing with “firms like YouTube, Epic Games, and TikTok (to name just a few). But, we are mostly competi9ng with ourselves.”

Gaming

It will take a few years before we will be able to see the full impact of Netflix’s gamble with gaming. We’ve already seen other tech giants struggle to break into the gaming market.

Amazon stumbled with the release of its own game Crucible, Google is still trying to figure out what to do with Stadia and even Apple is struggling to keep Apple Arcade relevant.

Let’s just hope that when it comes to Netflix’s venture into gaming that competition breeds excellence.

Listen to The Backstage Daily for all your entertainment news in 7 minutes or less! New episodes with celebrity guests every weekday.