Netflix finds itself in a precarious situation as for the first time ever it lost subscribers, which in turn led to a dip on the stock market. What the future of the company looks like, remains to be seen, but gaming is certainly a part of it. Not only has Netflix been at the forefront of the resurgence of cross-media involving video game IP, but it’s also been dipping its toe in the game publishing business as well. Meanwhile, it’s begun to release games that are exclusively available to its subscribers. So far, these have been mobile games, and smaller in scope and ambition, but of course, this could change over time. In the meantime, before the end of the year, subscribers have nearly 50 mobile games to look forward to that will be released via the subscription service to subscribers for no added costs.
What these games are and how good they will be, we don’t know. All we know is Netflix subscribers will be getting nearly 50 “free” mobile games before the end of the year. Back in March, one of the best games from this new initiative — a remaster of a highly-rated PlayStation game — was released.
So far, these games have been free of microtransactions and in-game ads. In other words, while they are free to subscribers they aren’t like other free-to-play games on mobile platforms.
Interestingly, back in September of last year, Netflix acquired Night School studio, the team best known for Oxenfree. The studio — which is the first to join the Netflix family — is known for high-quality console and PC games. It remains to be seen how an acquisition like this one — and any future ones — will intersect with this free mobile games initiative, but you have to imagine the plan is to bridge the two. If Netflix can make and release big-budget movies and TV shows, there’s no reason it can’t do this with console games. Obviously, though, there are more variables involved because not everyone who has a Netflix subscription is going to have a PS5 or Xbox Series X.
As always, feel free to share your thoughts and hot-takes in the comments section or, alternatively, hit me up on Twitter @Tyler_Fischer_ and let me know over there. What do you think of Netflix’s various new initiatives involving gaming?
H/T, The Washington Post.
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