Netflix Games: Netflix’s Bid to Command Digital Entertainment

“Wait, Netflix has games?” 

That was my reaction when I stumbled across a headline reporting that Netflix Games had surpassed 210 million mobile game downloads. Before this moment, I had assumed that users viewed Netflix Games with the same indifference generally exhibited towards Youtube Shorts and Twitter Fleets–two features which garnered underwhelming sentiment upon initial release. After considering it further, I realized that Shorts and Fleets were not universally embraced from the beginning, but gradually amassed popularity as more time passed, making the phenomenon of Netflix Games seem much less of a surprise.

When prominent new features are added to very established platforms, my first instinct is to investigate why. Some additions impart obvious reasons–a social networking app trying to match the cooler features of its competitor, or an e-commerce site integrating AI features to improve user recommendations. With Netflix Games, however, besides its eye-catching position at the top of the Netflix homepage, there existed no specific marketing to describe the reason for its creation.

After looking into the press release announcing the feature, it seems that Netflix sought to find more avenues for “entertaining [their] members” and embed themselves into as many digital spaces as possible. This ambition led them to release their first batch of mobile games in 2021, which featured a mix of simple arcade games with adventure games derived from Netflix's tentpole series. The first five mobile games released include: Stranger Things: 1984 (BonusXP), Stranger Things 3: The Game (BonusXP), Shooting Hoops (Frosty Pop), Card Blast (Amuzo & Rogue Games), and Teeter Up (Frosty Pop).  

Unfortunately, Netflix subscribers were not initially sold on Netflix Games. According to a CBNC report, less than 1% of the company's 223 million members were engaging with the games daily in the first 10 months of release. Nonetheless, Netflix continued to acquire other known intellectual property (IP) and develop more original titles, ultimately culminating in the headline-inducing user growth that took me by such surprise. Today, Netflix has collaborated with numerous companies to add over 100 games to their library. Current games include staples of the mobile and wider gaming industry (Grand Theft Auto, Into the Dead, Monument Valley, and Dumb Ways To Die), games featuring well known characters (Sonic, Spongebob, Transformers, and Hello Kitty), universally-minded puzzle, strategy, and arcade games (Pinball, Bowling Ballers, and Cut The Rope), and interactive story games which pull directly from Netflix IP (Too Hot To Handle, Money Heist, and Love is Blind). 

After a decade of mobile phone use, it is rare that I traverse the 183,000 mobile games on the iOS app store to find a new prospective game. Nevertheless, Netflix Games gave me a new opportunity and a new platform to test out a different source for entertainment. An interesting aspect of Netflix Games’ logistics that I immediately discovered is that Netflix is not the actual platform for gameplay, rather they are the intermediary that links you to the App Store or the Google Play Store to download the games as separate apps. To play any of the mobile games featured on the Netflix app, once selected, you are directed to your device's app store and instructed to download a separate app altogether. Consequently, besides being automatically signed into your Netflix account, your ties to Netflix become completely absent. This discovery made me realize that Netflix Games' main affordance is the connection to a breadth of exclusive or free games that would otherwise be unavailable or costly for non-members. Due to this, for a content-based review I wanted to zero in on the Netflix games that derived from their original IP. From the dozen or so that appeared to be directly based on Netflix original content, there was not one category that appeared more abundantly than the interactive choose your own adventure games on Netflix Stories. 

Netflix Stories is a subcategory of Netflix Games and is adjacent to the popular interactive story app, Episode: Choose Your Story. In the Netflix Stories app, users are currently able to pick from 6 different stories, each based on Love is Blind, Too Hot To Handle, Perfect Match, Virgin River, Emily in Paris, and Outer Banks. These focuses, many of which are in the romance or reality television genres, play on their inherent characteristic of escapism and fantasy. This is the kind of television where you think to yourself: “I bet if I was on this show, I wouldn’t do something this stupid.” or “Oh my god, this character is so dumb, I would not have made that choice!” Despite never completing Emily in Paris, I have seen enough of season one to know that some iteration of the latter would be my conviction. On account of this and my familiarity with Episode, I sat down to play Emily in Paris: Chapter 1. 

While playing, I was impressed by the accuracy with which main and secondary characters' likenesses were captured. However, although the likeness of these real actors is captured well, when it comes to your own character’s personalization, customization options are severely lacking in regards to diverse body sizes, hair textures and styles, and skin tones. For such a recently released game, inclusivity should not have to be asked for, nor should it be positioned as an update for future iterations. 

Despite this, the chapter itself incorporates a well-written plot and enables the user to pick from a decent number of distinct responses that seem to have some impact on the story. In the chapter, the story aligns with the original premise of the show as your character is offered a new job in Paris as a fashion magazine editor. In addition to that general storyline, your character is also having trouble adjusting to French culture, maintaining their job, and navigating new relationships. One key feature that I enjoyed was the interactive map that allows you to navigate between locations and provides a heightened sense of setting change. The chapter took around 45 minutes to complete, similar to an average episode of a Netflix original series. To some extent, it felt exactly like a gamified version of Netflix’s Interactive TV and Film projects.

Overall, the game experience emphasized Netflix’s need to develop their interactive stories and original series-integrated action and adventure games.These feel more like the Netflix Games that come to mind when you think back to television channel predecessors who had online websites filled with games that focused on small forms of show integration even on simple Pac-Man-like or matching strategy games. There is something nostalgic about that, and it is something that may attract more fans of their shows who do not regularly engage in mobile gameplay. 

As Netflix Games continue to expand, it will be fascinating to watch how gaming will be further implemented within the company’s overall marketing and subscription strategies. With the recent success, I wonder if other streaming giants will follow suit, and what that could mean for the future of entertainment ecosystems where streaming and interactive content converge.