Netflix Wants To Try Its Hand At Cloud Gaming

It sounds like Netflix isn’t satisfied with just making mobile games. Recently, the organization’s VP of Games, Mike Verdu, spoke at the TechCrunch Disrupt 2022 conference held in San Francisco from October 18th to the 20th. During this event, Verdu explained that the company was “seriously exploring” cloud gaming experiences that could be accessed through TVs and computers.

“It’s a value add. We’re not asking you to subscribe as a console replacement,” Verdu said. “It’s a completely different business model. The hope is over time that it just becomes this very natural way to play games wherever you are.”

In order to expand Netflix’s cloud video game offering, Netflix announced plans to open a gaming studio in southern California. The studio will be led by Chacko Sonny, the former executive producer of Overwatch.

Since Netflix announced it would be moving into the video game space, the organization has added 35 games to its portfolio. On top of that, the company said it has another 14 games currently in development at its studios.

The Profit‘s Take:

I didn’t even realize they had hit five studios (and now 6). It feels like they just opened their first studio a few weeks ago. Netflix’s approach towards gaming started off cautiously. However, 55 games in the works no longer feels cautious. I genuinely think Netflix doesn’t care and doesn’t understand video games. Neither of those things will prevent them from making money off games. They can make money and still not care about video games. They didn’t come out and say, “we’re going to make three amazing games that people will love.” Instead, they are making 55 games. Out of those 55 games, I imagine 54 will be crap. I also don’t get a cloud gaming offering that is NOT a console replacement. Why would anybody cloud-stream a mobile game that can run perfectly fine on almost any device? There is no mobile game today that is that taxing on the hardware. I don’t get it. I don’t think they get it. And, if they launch a cloud video game offering, I think it will fail. The accountants at Netflix have locked into this as a retention mechanism, so they don’t care what form the video game offering takes. These games are just TV show tie-ins that keep the conversation going around a series. I mean… good for Netflix, but this won’t change the world of gaming, which is something Netflix could’ve done. 99% of their games will be terrible.

(All information was provided by Google, TechCrunch, and Variety)