Streaming Giant Netflix To Add Gaming Services To Their Platform
The streaming giant Netflix – originally emerged from an online video library with postal delivery – now wants to focus more on building up a gaming division.While the company has inspired so many smaller streaming companies such as Rokkr, the group announced this in its report for the second quarter of 2021. This confirms the first rumors that arose after the recruitment of former EA and Oculus manager Mike Verdu in mid-July. What do gaming and streaming have in common – and what potential do video games have for media companies?
Netflix strategy: compete for every free minute in front of the screen
“Fortnite means more competition for us than HBO,” said Netflix boss Reed Hastings back in 2019 and thus gave an insight into his view of the corporate strategy: Netflix should gain “free time” or “entertainment time” from other activities – none Xbox, no Youtube, no HBO, Netflix should offer the better and ad-free experience.
After first forays into interactive series with “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch” and spin-offs with “Carmen Sandiego” and “Stranger Things”, the company now wants to concentrate primarily on mobile gaming – and the gaming offer in regular Netflix subscriptions at no additional cost integrate, as can also be read in the quarterly report.
In “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch” 2018, viewers were able to make decisions about how things would proceed – a real competition developed on the Internet to play through and experience all possible storylines.
Video games belong to the digital age
“For me, this actually confirms what we’ve been doing here for years,” explains Gilles Freissinier, responsible for digital development and web production at Arte France : “If you look at the digital offering in a user-centered manner – how do users live and experience the digital – , then you can hardly get past video games. ”
Video games take up a relatively long time with users and, above all, gaming is now widespread: “In France, for example, the average age of gamers, women and men, is 40”. The developments in the field of mobile gaming on smartphones have made video games popular, according to Freissinier – “everyone has a game on their smartphone”.
Films and series have long had connections with the gaming universe
He sees the plans of Netflix primarily as a “diversification of the offer” – spinning off series as video games or video games as films or series have been produced for a long time. Disney, Netflix’s competitor in the streaming market, has been here since the beginning of the video game era. Nevertheless, Gilles Freissinier does not rule out that new, stand-alone games will soon be produced by Netflix.
“If you develop a strong world, it can work in a series as well as in a video game,” he says – this can make the potentially expensive development of a series more profitable. The merchandise offers that have now been launched by the streaming service Netflix are also going in this direction.