58% of League of Legends Fans Subscribe to Netflix Thanks to ‘Arcane,’ Spinoff Mobile Game ‘Hextech Mayhem’
Last year, Netflix launched its first-ever mobile games and as of now, “Hextech Mayhem” from Riot Games is arguably the streamer’s biggest game to date. The mobile-exclusive offering is a spinoff of one of the most popular games/esports in the world: League of Legends (LoL).
According to Interpret data, 58% of League of Legends fans in the U.S. are more likely to subscribe to Netflix than other streaming services.
Meanwhile, Amazon Prime Video takes second place with 56% of LoL fans subscribed to its service, Disney+ comes in at 42%, then Hulu with a combined 54% across both tiers (ad-free and ad-supported), Paramount+ at 20%, Apple TV+ 17%, and Peacock with the least LoL fans subscribed at 13%.
“Hextech Mayhem: A League of Legends Story” is a rhythm video game developed by Choice Provisions and published by Riot Forge, a publishing division of Riot Games. The game was released in November 2021 for Nintendo Switch and PC, via Steam, GOG, and the Epic Games Store.
It arrived to Netflix’s global subscribers last month, representing a new gaming partnership for the streamer and the first major gaming franchise in its collection. Netflix has also sold its game “Arcanium: Rise of Akhan” to other gaming platforms, which was first released in December 2020.
Video game-based series “The Witcher,” “Castlevania,” and LoL-based “Arcane” are some of the top-performing shows on the service. In fact, Arcane quickly gained the top position in 52 countries when it was released last year. In addition, the show spent six weeks in Netflix’s Top 10, and the total hours watched in the Global Top 10s is 143,910,000 million hours.
Arcane
Amid the stark discord of twin cities Piltover and Zaun, two sisters fight on rival sides of a war between magic technologies and clashing convictions.
The exclusive deal to bring Hextech Mayhem to Netflix is a smart move, and it would not be surprising to see Netflix continue to add new LoL content — both in gaming and video.
Netflix knows that it has an audience that is passionate about gaming IP and has signaled its intent to cater to more serious gamers in recent months. In its fourth quarter earnings call, the company hinted that it’s open to licensing larger game IP in the future. Netflix explained to investors that these initial gaming launches are more about setting up Netflix to better understand what consumers want from the new service.
“It’s tremendously exciting to get to this point because we basically have been building the plumbing and all the technical infrastructure just to get to the point where we can do this, which is consistently launching games globally to all of our members” said Netflix’s COO and Chief Product Officer Greg Peters during the call. “We’re now really getting to learn from all those games what are the discovery patterns, what are the engagement patterns, how are they performing, what do our members want from games on the service.”
However, Netflix is also interested in having things go the other way as well. “Stranger Things” started life as one of the platform’s most beloved series before getting the video game treatment later on with the initial launch “Stranger Things: 1984” and “Stranger Things 3.”
As of yesterday, Netflix entered into a combination agreement to acquire Next Games, the maker of the streamer’s other “Stranger Things” mobile game called “Stranger Things: Puzzle Tales,” which has been played more than 70 million times.
Stranger Things
When a young boy vanishes, a small town uncovers a mystery involving secret experiments, terrifying supernatural forces, and one strange little girl.
As Netflix increasingly infiltrates the gaming industry, the streamer views games as a key pillar of entertainment culture. So expect to see plenty of other gaming IPs on the service in the form of games and/or shows in the future.
Netflix
Netflix is a subscription video streaming service that includes on-demand access to 3,000+ movies, 2,000+ TV Shows, and Netflix Originals like Stranger Things, Squid Game, The Crown, Tiger King, and Bridgerton. They are constantly adding new shows and movies. Some of their Academy Award-winning exclusives include Roma, Marriage Story, Mank, and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.