Netflix constructed its basis on streamlined DVD leases and, finally, on tepid “status” TV sequence that individuals discuss for per week earlier than forgetting they ever existed within the first place. Now, amid a uncommon monetary stagnation, Netflix plans to commit exhausting to video games, per a brand new report in The Washington Submit.
Earlier this week, Netflix mentioned it misplaced 200,000 subscribers over the primary three months of the yr. That information, alongside a forecasted additional lack of 2 million subscribers, brought about its inventory to drop by a staggering 35 p.c—the corporate’s largest drop in practically 20 years, in accordance with Bloomberg.
The Submit, which spoke to “a supply conversant in the corporate’s considering,” stories that Netflix plans to make 50 video games obtainable earlier than the top of the yr. Among the many crop is a cell recreation based mostly on Exploding Kittens, the favored if considerably sadistic card recreation about kittens who explode which will or could not contain alcohol relying on who you play with. Netflix may even produce a present.
Usually, Netflix’s foray into video video games has been about licensing IP or adapting wildly common video games to average success. Arcane, an animated sequence based mostly on League of Legends, bought off to an absolute rip-roaring begin. (A second season is deliberate however doesn’t have a launch window.) Its great Castlevania sequence lately wrapped up a profitable four-season run, with a sequel sequence on the way in which. And, in fact, there’s the cultural behemoth that’s The Witcher. Two live-action seasons and an animated film in, plus one other live-action movie on the way in which, it exhibits no indicators of slowing down. Dota: Dragon’s Blood additionally exists.
Netflix has additionally adopted within the footsteps of the online game business’s largest development du jour—wholesale acquisitions of smaller corporations—and began scooping up recreation growth studios. Probably the most notable one to this point is that of Oxenfree dev Evening Faculty Studios, which Netflix acquired final September. The studio’s subsequent recreation, Oxenfree II: Misplaced Alerts, is deliberate for launch someday this yr for Change, PlayStation, and PC.
G/O Media could get a fee
Clearly, the streaming large’s plans for a serious push into video games had been set in movement nicely earlier than loss figures had been posted this week. And the declining subscriber figures could be chalked as much as various elements, together with the still-ongoing pandemic and the proliferation of competing streaming companies like HBO Max and Paramount+ (the one community prepared to present Grasp Chief’s ass). However the message right here is evident: There’s a shit ton of cash in video games, and the non-gaming tech giants are beginning to sensible as much as it.
Representatives for Netflix didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark from Kotaku.
