Although Netflix plans to double its selection of video games by the end of the year, few of the streaming giant’s subscribers are currently playing.
The company has been releasing the games since last November as a way to keep users interested in between episodes of shows. Only subscribers have access to the games, which must be downloaded as separate apps.
According to Apptopia, a provider of app analytics, the games have received 23.3 million downloads overall and have an average daily user base of 1.7 million. Less than 1% of Netflix’s 221 million subscribers comprise that number.
As the company contends with escalating competition for users’ attention, it is arguable that the significance of games to Netflix’s overall strategy has increased in recent months. Its first subscriber declines in more than a decade, Netflix lost nearly a million subscribers in the second quarter after losing 200,000 in the first.
In a letter to shareholders last year, Netflix listed TikTok and Epic Games as two of its main competitors for consumers’ attention.
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According to Tom Forte, an analyst for Prosek Partners, “one of the many benefits to Netflix in pursuing the strategy is the ability to drive engagement beyond when the show first comes out on the platform.”
While learning how games can keep users on the service, Netflix Chief Operating Officer Greg Peters stated last year that the company had been doing so for “many months and really, frankly, years.”
During the company’s conference call to discuss its fourth-quarter earnings, Peters said, “We’re going to be experimental and try a bunch of things.” But I’d assert that our focus on the long-term goal is more focused on our capacity to produce properties that are related to the universes, people, and narratives that we’re developing.
The company currently has 24 game apps in its library, which span a variety of genres and Netflix series like “Stranger Things: 1984.” Many of them are based on well-known card games, including “Exploding Kittens” and “Mahjong Solitaire.”
According to a company representative, the selection will increase to 50 games by the end of the year, including “Queen’s Gambit Chess,” based on the popular Netflix series.
Netflix has been coy about how it intends to turn gaming into a main focus of the business strategy rather than merely a pastime.
Leanne Loombe, head of external games at Netflix, said on a panel at the Tribeca Film Festival in June, “We’re still learning and experimenting and trying to figure out what things will actually resonate with our members, what games people want to play. So we’re keeping things a little bit quiet.
Earlier this year, Netflix made a hint that it would be obtaining popular intellectual property to use in its upcoming gaming additions.
According to Peters in January, “We’re open to licensing and accessing large game IP that people will recognize.” And I believe that some of that will occur in the upcoming year.
Netflix hired outside developers for its current library, but in the previous 12 months, it bought three game developers.
All of this results in increasing investment. Although Netflix hasn’t made public how much it spends on developing its video game section, the work is expensive. The Finnish game developer Next Games was purchased by Netflix for about $72 million.
According to Forrester analyst Mike Proulx, Netflix has been investing in gaming gradually and that it currently seems to be “more of a test and experiment at this stage.” Most people, he said, don’t connect Netflix with video games.
According to Apptopia, the top mobile games, including Subway Surfers, Roblox, and Among Us, have each received more than 100 million downloads. Netflix games have so far fared much worse in terms of download numbers. However, following a decline that began in December, downloads have been slowly increasing since May.
Reed Hastings, co-CEO and co-founder of Netflix, said in January that in order to satisfy his subscribers, the company must offer only the best in each category. “We need to excel at it differently. There’s no point of just being in it.”
