Netflix currently has over 80 games in development and plans to release one title every month
Netflix currently has over 80 games in development and aims to release one title per month starting this month onwards.
During its latest earnings call on July 18, co-CEO and president Gregory K. Peters shared the company's ongoing plans for its gaming initiative and also said
"We're getting close to three years into our gaming initiative, and we're happy with the progress that we've seen," Peters said. We've had set ourselves pretty aggressive engagement growth targets. And we've met those, exceeded those in many cases. In 2023, we tripled that engagement. We're looking good in our engagement growth in '24, and we've set even more aggressive growth goals for '25 and '26."
Netflix has launched "over 100 games so far" on the mobile app, but Peters did admit that engagement is "still quite small" - as well as content spend - compared to its other streaming services.
Peters said that the 80+ games set for release will be labelled as "interactive narrative games" - dubbed Netflix Stories - and will be based on existing Netflix IP, like the popular series Emily in Paris.
"We've seen what works, what doesn't work," Peters added. "We're refining our program to do more of what is working with the 80-plus games that we currently have in development. And one of those things that really is working is connecting our members with games based on specific Netflix IP that they love.
"And this is an area that we've been able to move in quickly in a particular space, which is interactive narrative games. These are easier to build. And we place those in a narrative hub that we call Netflix Stories."
Theodore A Sarandos, Co-CEO, president and director, also joined the discussion and said that Netflix's opportunity to "serve super fandom with games is really fun and remarkable."
"I think the idea of being able to take a show and give the superfan a place to be in between seasons and even beyond that, to be able to use the game platform to introduce new characters and new storylines or new plot twist events, now you could do those kind of things and then they can then materialize in the next season or in the sequel to the film," Sarandos said.
Netflix's current game library on the mobile app is available with every Netflix membership without ads, in-app purchases, or extra fees.
