Netflix brings video games to its TV service for first time
The company has been offering games for four years, part of a plan to extend its reach beyond films and TV shows
[LOS ANGELES] Netflix wants you to play Boggle in between binges of Stranger Things.
The streaming service is making its video games available for play on TVs for the first time, co-chief executive officer Greg Peters said on Wednesday (Oct 8) at the Bloomberg Screentime conference in Los Angeles, taking a major step forward in one of its key growth initiatives.
“One of the gaming areas we are going after is social gaming experiences that can show up on your TV,” said Peters, who gave the company a B-minus grade for its efforts in that area so far.
Netflix is specifically offering games that can be played in groups, including Boggle Party, Pictionary: Game Night, Tetris Time Warp and Lego Party.
The company has been offering games for four years, part of a plan to extend its reach beyond films and TV shows. Until now, users had to play those games on mobile devices. With the new ones, subscribers will use their phones as controllers, but much of the play will be on the big screen.
Peters has taken the lead on pushing Netflix into games, a lucrative industry that has mostly bedevilled most Hollywood studios. Targeting play on TVs makes sense because gaming on phones is a “well-developed, competitive ecosystem”.
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Alain Tascan, the head of Netflix’s gaming business, said that a number of film and TV companies have tried to enter the space without success. “They took a short-term approach,” he said.
Tascan joined Netflix in July 2024 from Epic Games, the publisher of Fortnite, to help reboot the company’s strategy and break the Hollywood curse when it comes to games. Netflix at first thought that offering games for free on mobile phones would attract lots of users. But the company is not a destination for video games, and many enthusiasts already play elsewhere.
Management has since identified four categories to prioritise: games for kids, games for parties, mainstream hits such as Grand Theft Auto and games based on existing Netflix properties such as Stranger Things.
All of the games in this first offering are free. Lego Party normally retails for about US$40.
To play, users must have a smart TV or use streaming devices like those from Roku. To turn a phone into a controller, players will have to scan a QR code. Netflix would like gameplay to be smooth.
The company is committed to games as a big part of its future, and has been investing lately in more cloud server capacity to accommodate the increased traffic.
“To entertain the world, we must include games,” Tascan said. “A lot of companies have a lot of users, but not that many have all these people on the main entertainment screen at home, the TV.” BLOOMBERG
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