Netflix Making Hay With Games Based On Its IP, Will Release One A Month Starting In July

Netflix is three years into its games initiative and said it will release about a game a month starting in July – so now – in its Netflix Stories series based on the giant streamer’s IP.

Netflix Stories was launched in September of 2023 with Love is Blind and has a growing catalog of interactive fiction games based on series and films. In Q2, it added Virgin River and Perfect Match. This month it starts ramping up with Emily in Paris and Selling Sunset. Separately, a multiplayer game based on the Squid Game universe will drop later this year, timed to the Season 2 launch of its biggest TV series.

Big, existing games like Grand Theft Auto do well on the streamer as well even at this early stage, it said. But execs are particularly pumped about IP that’s timed to the launch of a series or film as, said co-CEO Ted Sarandos, the streamer is able “to serve its super fandom with games.”

It “gives the superfans 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 twists, events. Now you could do those kinds of things, and then they could then materialize in the next season, or in the sequel to the film,” he said during a video call following the streamer’s latest quarterly earnings.

“I’m really excited to see where this goes.”

Netflix doesn’t provide financial or engagement details for it games division and execs didn’t give any on the call. Co-CEO Greg Peters said the company’s had set itself pretty aggressive engagement and growth targets, which it has met or exceeded so far “and is happy with the progress that we’ve seen.” He said games’ impact on the overall business it still “quite small” as is the investment relative to Netflix’ overall content spend.

“We’re being disciplined about how we scale. So now the job is to continue to grow that engagement to the place where it has a material impact on the business.”

This a typical trajectory for all new Netflix ventures, he said, “whether it’s been a new content genre like unscripted, or film, or maybe getting the content mix right for a particular country” or more recently, live events and sports. “We continually iterate, we refine our programming based on the signals we get from our members. And if you look over several years with that model, we can make a huge amount of progress.”

He said Netflix has launched 100+ games so far, seeing what works and what doesn’t and shifting accordingly. It has 80+ games currently has in development.