It’s very likely you’ll have enjoyed plenty of Netflix over the last month, bingeing on box sets, Christmas movies and everything in between.
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But how many of you played games via the streaming platform?
Netflix has hosted games for a little while now, not that many of you would know. Played via the mobile app (not available on your TV), while the company has shunned live sports of late, it marks a potentially new era for Netflix.
But can it challenge already established gaming services?
The gaming market is huge at present, and is certainly a growing market. From playing casino online, to the many console-standard games available on the likes of Steam and other platforms, more and more of us are looking to gaming as our new favourite pastime.
Of course, billions have been pumped into these industries and genres, with the likes of Electronic Arts and Rockstar having existed for decades now, which does put Netflix behind the pace.
That’s certainly evident from the output so far, with it mainly basic games on offer from the brand. However, there is potential.
We’re already seeing TV-show specific games, based upon their own titles like Stranger Things, which should they produce a standard of game that can be found available on consoles, then they would surely be a hit.
But just how much are Netflix willing to put in? The company’s financial situation has been reported heavily of late, with a subscriber exodus and over 100 jobs cut, which may make investing heavily in gaming a tricky task, certainly if they want to compete at the top.
Perhaps they simply want a slice of the mobile market. That is lucrative enough. In hiring Marko Lastikka last year to lead their new gaming studio, they have someone with heaps of experience as co-founder of Zynga, while Netflix have also acquired Next Gamed and a number of other studios.
Each of these studios will have different focus areas to suit the diverse taste of Netflix users, and only time will tell if it will work on retaining subscribers and gaining new ones.
It may take years before we see anything that can rival the big guns in the gaming market, but it could be a hugely important next step for the brand and, pardon the expression, a real game-changer for the gaming market too, as new technology hits the market and it continues to become even more accessible.
