After it was just a rumor, it has now been confirmed: The streaming service Netflix plans to offer games for streaming in the future as well. However, the offered games and the intention behind it are different from Stadia, Luna, and others.
What has been said about the game streaming rumor? Recently, there was an investors’ call at Netflix. During this, the company’s future offerings were discussed. CEO Reed Hastings and Chief Product Officer Greg Peters confirmed a rumor that circulated earlier this week: namely, that Netflix is also looking to enter game streaming and wants to include games in its portfolio.
Netflix will initially offer only mobile games at no extra cost – But this is just the beginning
What exactly does Netflix plan? Those who speculated that Netflix simply wanted to offer the same service as other game streaming services, such as Stadia, Luna, or the Microsoft Game Pass, may now be surprised.
Because Netflix is not planning to produce its own games for now and wants to focus only on mobile games initially. Moreover, Hastings stated that they do not intend to profit from the games but rather to make Netflix’s offering more attractive. His colleague Peters left it open whether Netflix will consider more options if this feature is successful.
Netflix wants to start small: For now, it seems that subscribers will still be bound to their Netflix subscription, even if their favorite series has no new season. If they can still play some casual mobile games, they might stay subscribed until there are again attractive series available. Additionally, there are already mobile games based on Netflix series, such as Stranger Things. They want to continue expanding in the long term and offer more games for series. They want to be ‘experimental’.
Netflix plans mobile games without annoying in-game shops: The games offered by Netflix should also be attractive to customers for another reason. Because mobile games have a reputation for having particularly aggressive shops that want to extract money from customers.
But this shouldn’t be necessary with Netflix. They have already received the customers’ money for the subscription and simply want to provide fun. Greg Peters added:
We also believe that our subscription model provides the opportunity to support gaming experiences that are underserved by the currently prevailing monetization models. We don’t have to think about advertising, we don’t have to think about in-game purchases or other monetization, we don’t have to think about buying titles… we can just focus on providing the most enjoyable gaming experiences we can.
What should this bring? How Netflix plans to implement game streaming is still unclear. However, you will likely be able to stream the games directly to your device without having to install the game. The hardware won’t matter much, and high-quality games should still run on old devices with a good internet connection.
Additionally, you may be able to play mobile games cross-platform, for example on the TV and on your phone. What exactly Netflix has in mind in this area remains to be seen in the future.
When is this supposed to start? If all of this is true, we can expect a broad offering of mobile titles included in the Netflix subscription without additional costs in 2022, sparing us from annoying and potentially even exploitative in-game shops.
According to Netflix, the initial focus on mobile titles should only be the beginning, and there may be more to come in the future. Perhaps in the end, Netflix will indeed become the long-awaited ‘Netflix for gamers’.
Netflix goes well with games, as there was recently a video that featured the new hero from Apex Legends, which also had clear similarities to a cult Netflix series.
