They say go big or go home, and it appears that streaming giant Netflix is taking that sentiment to heart. In its most recent earnings call, Netflix revealed that it has 80-plus games in development for its Netflix Games vertical. Not only are there dozens of games currently in development, but the streaming company has also outlined plans to release a game a month to its subscribers.

To start, co-CEO, president and director of Netflix, Gregory K. Peters, revealed why the company is even interested in games to begin with. The short? Money.

Peters revealed that the global gaming market is at nearly $150 billion in revenue annually, and that's with discounting China and Russia, as well as ad revenue. In other words, there's a lot of money floating around, and Netflix wants a segment of that. To that end, the company noted that its overall investment in games is small compared to what its investment in streamable content is.

Netflix Also Wants To Connect Fans With More Content Between Seasons
That said, the company is also interested in gaming as a means to help connect fans with content in between seasons and movies. Netflix's other co-CEO, Theodore A. Sarandos, described the gaming investment as an opportunity "of being able to take a show and give the superfan a place to be in between seasons and even beyond that, to be able to use the game platform to introduce new characters and new storylines or new plot twist events."

To this point, Netflix has launched over 100 games. The number sounds massive, and it is, but it's important to note that a large portion of the Netflix Games catalog is mobile or narrative-based games. That's not to say that Netflix doesn't have quality IP in its catalog, because the platform does have the likes of Hades and Grand Theft Auto, but a large focus is on smaller titles in both scale and scope.

The game per month initiative that Netflix has in mind directly refers to its Netflix Stories games. "These are easier to build," Peters noted. That said, Netflix is indeed working on an AAA game. It brought on Joseph Staten of Halo fame to work on a new multiplatform title and an original IP. It's entirely possible down the line that Netflix can get into a cadence where that one game a month is a big-budget title.

Based off the call, it seems like Netflix is aware of the potential of gaming, and is equally invested as it is calculated in its commitment to it. Given how many IP Netflix has, it'll be interesting to see which of them makes the jump to video games.

So today, I'm thrilled to announce that I've joined @Netflix Games as Creative Director for a brand-new AAA multiplatform game and original IP. Let's go! 2/2

— Joseph Staten (@joestaten) April 17, 2023

Posted: Jul 24, 2024 10:05 pm
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: https://www.thegamer.com/netflix-wants-to-release-a-game-a-month-has-80-in-dev-netflix-games-service/