Netflix Focused on Making Mobile Games Enjoyable, Will Worry About Monetization Later
It’s not whether you win or lose, what matters is that you’re having fun. That’s the philosophy Netflix is taking with its mobile games currently, according to comments made by senior officials during the company’s quarterly call with investors to discuss its latest earnings report.
When asked on Tuesday if Netflix had any plans to monetize its mobile games directly, such as licensing intellectual property to other media outlets or building ads or microtransactions into the games themselves, co-CEO Greg Peters replied that the user experience was foremost on the company’s mind.
“The best thing for us to do is really focus on the core initiative, which, for us right now, is how do we bring games and games based on our IP to our members, to fans of that IP directly,” Peters said. “And also, we believe that we want to have a differentiated gaming experience. And part of that is giving game creators the ability to think about building games purely from the perspective of player enjoyment and not having to worry about other forms of monetization, whether it be ads or in-game payment.”
Peters also dropped a few names of games he personally recommended, including the reverse city builder “Terra Nil,” and the newly-launched “Mighty Quest.” Netflix currently has 55 games available that all subscribers can play for free on their mobile devices, and the company is working toward being able to offer them on smart TVs and other devices as well.
The co-CEO declined to offer any concrete numbers regarding engagement with Netflix’s mobile games, however. A report from August 2022 showed that less than 1% of Netflix users were playing its mobile games. The company has beefed up its investment in that segment of its business considerably since then, but it must not be seeing numbers that will make for good headlines (from Netflix’s perspective) if it’s not ready to report those numbers publicly.
There will be at least 40 more titles added to Netflix’s gaming catalog by the end of this year. That includes “OXENFREE II,” which will be the company’s first new game from one of its internal studios to be released. Netflix has six in-house games studios working full tilt to churn out new content, which helps to explain how it will bring so many new titles to its service in the coming months.
If mobile gaming proves a success for Netflix, it could potentially start offering cloud gaming options as well. The sky is the limit for Netflix when it comes to gaming, but the world’s largest streaming service has to get off the ground first.
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.