In a public statement, Netflix announced that it’s working on building its first in-house games studio to develop original games. This initiative is also an effort to push toward an independent gaming studio rather than relying on third-party studios, which Netflix has been doing over the past few months.
The new studio is going to be the fourth studio under Netflix and will be based in Helsinki, Finland. The company has heavily invested in pre-established games studios to meet their gaming ends. Marko Lastikka will lead the studio as the Studio Director, per the statement from Netflix. Earlier this year, Netflix purchased Night School Studio, the indie developers responsible for Oxenfree and Next Stop Nowhere. Another games studio acquired by Netflix includes Boss Fight Entertainment, developers of the Dungeon Boss game. In addition to its internal games studio in Helsinki, Netflix owns Next Game studio, also based in Helsinki, Finland. Currently, Netflix boasts an impressive roster of thirty-one mobile games, completely free to play for its subscribers. The games do not have any micro-transactions or advertisements. Netflix is already working on expanding its game library to at least fifty games by the end of the year. This also includes the most popular Stranger Things game currently in development by Next Games. Stranger Things is one of the most popular Netflix shows, but can the game match the hype? Just a few months ago, Netflix announced its partnership with Ubisoft to develop a Netflix-exclusive Assassin’s Creed game. Netflix is clearly pushing into the gaming industry, especially after its stock plummeted not long ago. “It’s still early days, and we have much more work to do to deliver a great games experience on Netflix. Creating a game can take years, so I’m proud to see how we’re steadily building the foundation of our games studios in our first year, and look forward to sharing what we produce in the coming years,” says Amir Rahimi, Vice President of the Games Studio. He also states that the games on Netflix won’t have any in-app purchases or ads. You can currently verify this by downloading any one of the Netflix games from the app on your iOS or Android if you’re a subscriber. While the Netflix app works as a “portal” to download the games on your mobile, it still downloads them as individual apps. But will the home of streaming be able to compete with the biggest gaming companies well-established in the market? Only time will tell. But given their newly found venture, a recent report reveals that less than 1% of Netflix’s subscribers are actually playing the games. This is around 1.7 Million daily players. While it may sound like a lot, it is not even a fraction of the total number of Netflix subscribers.
