Netflix constructed its basis on streamlined DVD leases and, finally, on tepid “status” TV sequence that folks speak about for every week earlier than forgetting they ever existed within the first place. Now, amid a uncommon monetary stagnation, Netflix plans to commit laborious to video games, per a brand new report in The Washington Post.
Earlier this week, Netflix mentioned it misplaced 200,000 subscribers over the primary three months of the 12 months. That information, alongside a forecasted additional lack of 2 million subscribers, triggered its inventory to drop by a staggering 35 %—the corporate’s largest drop in almost 20 years, in line with Bloomberg.
The Post, which spoke to “a supply conversant in the corporate’s pondering,” studies that Netflix plans to make 50 video games out there earlier than the top of the 12 months. Among the crop is a cellular sport primarily based on Exploding Kittens, the favored if considerably sadistic card sport about kittens who explode that will or might not contain alcohol relying on who you play with. Netflix may even produce a present.
Typically, Netflix’s foray into video video games has been about licensing IP or adapting wildly widespread video games to average success. Arcane, an animated sequence primarily based on League of Legends, received off to an absolute rip-roaring begin. (A second season is deliberate however doesn’t have a launch window.) Its super 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 reveals 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 pattern du jour—wholesale acquisitions of smaller corporations—and began scooping up sport growth studios. The most notable one to this point is that of Oxenfree dev Night School Studios, which Netflix acquired final September. The studio’s subsequent sport, Oxenfree II: Lost Signals, is deliberate for launch someday this 12 months for Switch, PlayStation, and PC.
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Obviously, the streaming large’s plans for a significant push into video games had been set in movement properly earlier than loss figures had been posted this week. And the declining subscriber figures may be chalked as much as quite a lot of elements, together with the still-ongoing pandemic and the proliferation of competing streaming providers like HBO Max and Paramount+ (the one community keen to present Master Chief’s ass). But 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 clever as much as it.
Representatives for Netflix didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark from Kotaku.
