Plenty of odd decisions from CEOs make the headlines. Take Japanese video game developer Capcom, which opened a butcher selling (fake) human remains in London to promote Resident Evil 6.
This was three years after the same company organized a treasure hunt, also in London, to find realistic-looking human arms, legs, heads, and torsos – all in aid of advertising Resident Evil 5.
Similarly, Netflix’s decision to make a shift into video gaming should have been one of those things that live rent-free in our minds forever. Unfortunately, despite how bizarre it seems, Netflix’s video arcade seems to have gone nowhere. The Indy100 newspaper reports that 0.88% or 2.2m users make daily visits to the streaming platform’s gaming section. At its peak, in January 2023, the same segment almost made it to 3m.
Made-for-Netflix
Netflix seems to be getting desperate to attract gamers, despite assurances to the contrary. One of the most recent additions to its library is Supergiant Games’ Hades, a 2020 release that’s widely considered one of the best dungeon crawlers of all time.
This is quite a shift away from hyper-casual titles like Bowling Ballers, Shooting Hoops, and Teeter (Up), which is about moving a platform up and down.
Netflix also has the 2018 smash Dead Cells on its books, along with the made-for-Netflix Oxenfree II, an adventure game.
This latter decision is reminiscent of Epic Games’ brute-force effort to overcome Steam in the popularity stakes on PC, largely, by paying developers to ignore every other storefront. The Creative Assembly title, A Total War Saga: Troy, was exclusive to Epic for a year from August 2020.
Identity Crisis
Yet Epic is a gaming store on a gaming platform. In fact, the company owns the popular Fortnite battle royale. Netflix isn’t any of those things. If we consider that its version of Hades is a mobile port, its identity crisis only seems to get worse.
Android and iOS are both dominant gaming ecosystems that have managed to appeal to just about everything in this expansive niche, inclusive of AAA studios, indies, and even casino operators.
The New Jersey online casino Playstar has all its slots listed for mobile play, including licensed titles like Monopoly Money Grab, Space Invaders, and Stargate Megaways.
Granted, casinos exist an entire world over from traditional gaming, but the connection between mobile and interactive media is still visible.
The worry is that Netflix is simultaneously targeting everybody and nobody at all in the entertainment industry.
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch
Users of the platform generally don’t seek out Netflix for gaming, a problem that means its audience is always going to be a mishmash of interests, with gaming somewhere near the bottom (less than a percent of subscribers seem to be gamers, as mentioned earlier).
Let’s not forget that Netflix’s previous experiments in interactivity, like the one that produced Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, only resulted in a handful of throwaway experiences, such as Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous: Hidden Adventure and Escape the Undertaker.
Perhaps Netflix still has an ace up its sleeve. Perhaps one AAA game from the platform will change the gaming landscape forever. It’s just not easy to see that happening in the industry as it stands.
