Netflix To Launch Over 80 Games, Promises New Releases Monthly
Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX) announced plans to release a new game to subscribers every month starting in July 2024.
This ambitious strategy was unveiled during the company’s latest earnings call, where co-CEO and President Gregory K. Peters declared Netflix’s commitment to expanding its gaming portfolio, GamesIndustry.Biz reported.
A Growing Focus On Gaming
Peters stressed the potential of the gaming market, noting that it generated “almost $150 billion, excluding China and Russia” without relying on advertisement revenue.
“We’re getting close to three years into our gaming initiative, and we’re happy with the progress that we’ve seen,” Peters said. “We’ve had set ourselves pretty aggressive engagement growth targets. And we’ve met those, exceeded those in many cases. In 2023, we tripled that engagement. We’re looking good in our engagement growth in ’24, and we’ve set even more aggressive growth goals for ’25 and ’26.”
Despite these successes, Peters acknowledged engagement with Netflix’s gaming content is still relatively small. He also pointed out that the spending on gaming is modest compared to the company’s overall content expenditure.
Netflix’s Future Plans
Netflix already launched more than 100 games, and Peters revealed the company had over 80 in development. The focus, he explained, is on refining their offerings based on what has proven successful.
“We’ve seen what works, what doesn’t work,” Peters added. “We’re refining our program to do more of what is working with the 80-plus games that we currently have in development. And one of those things that really is working is connecting our members with games based on specific Netflix IP that they love.”
One area where Netflix has seen particular success is in interactive narrative games. These games, which are integrated into a narrative hub called Netflix Stories, are easier to build and offer engaging experiences based on popular Netflix shows.
Between April and June 2024, Netflix launched games based on “Virgin River” and “Perfect Match.” Starting in July, the company plans to release “about one new title per month,” with many more diverse games expected in the coming quarters and years.
Enthusiasm From Leadership
Co-CEO and president Theodore A. Sarandos expressed excitement about the potential of gaming to deepen fan engagement.
“I think our opportunity here to serve super fandom with games is really fun and remarkable,” Sarandos said. “I think the idea 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 […] I’m really excited to see where this goes.”
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