Netflix Seems More Serious About Its Gaming Push Than Google Ever Did

This week, Netflix announced in an earnings call that it has more than 80 new games in the works in addition to the 100-plus games already available. The plan is to launch one new game each month. And the thing is that Netflix actually tends to follow through on promises like this. In 2021, it vowed to release new movies every week, and then… just did it. It has me thinking back to another tech giant’s move into gaming a few years ago.

Stadia Flopped, But Netflix Is Taking A Different Approach To Games

When Google announced that it was pushing into games with its cloud-based console Stadia, it appeared to be going all in. It made an aggressive push at E3 in 2019, brought third-party partners like Ubisoft and CD Projekt Red aboard, and hired in-house developers like Assassin’s Creed and Watch Dogs co-creator, Jade Raymond. The marketing push was substantial, and gamers spent plenty of time debating whether this new all-streaming system could be the future of the business.

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But some, like Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, wondered if Google would bail on Stadia within a few years. It had done the same with many other initiatives in the past (there’s even a website, killedbygoogle.com, dedicated to tracking them all). It turned out, history was destined to repeat itself. Stadia shuttered on January 18, 2023, about three years after its November 19, 2019 launch.

So, if the full-court press Google gave Stadia doesn’t indicate true commitment, what does? Shutting up and doing the work. That’s what Netflix has largely been doing with its gaming offering since 2022, despite offering buzzy titles like Hades, Immortality, and The Case of the Golden Idol. It isn’t trying to do something big and ambitious like Google. It isn’t attempting to redefine how we interact with mobile games, a la Apple Arcade‘s separate subscription service. You just download the games available on the service to your phone like any other mobile games.

As of now, Netflix’s games seem more like a bonus incentive for getting or keeping a subscription, not a main course on their own. The best-kept-secret in games might be that you already have access to over 100 games for no extra cost through your Netflix subscription (or, more likely, your parents’ Netflix subscription, provided Netflix hasn’t got wise).

Netflix’s Gaming Offering Mixes Modern Classics And Branded Tie-In Games

Those games cover a wide range. You’ve got modern classics like Braid, Anniversary Edition and Dead Cells, but you’ve also got a ton of licensed games that look like cash-grabby mobile tie-ins. Narcos: Cartel Wars Unlimited and Too Hot To Handle: Love Is A Game might be great, but their titles don’t inspire much confidence.

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But that mixture shows that Netflix has a solid handle on how people actually play games on their phones. They may love Money Heist and discover Money Heist: Ultimate Choice because the Netflix app recommends it to them. If they find it to be a little shallow, they may go digging through Netflix’s library and discover that they can play crime-oriented classics like Grand Theft Auto 3 on their phone for no extra cost. They may check out that Narcos strategy game and find legit tactical classic Into the Breach in the process.

The GTA games available on Netflix (3, Vice City, San Andreas)
are
the widely-hated The Definitive Edition versions, so downloader beware.

Ultimately, those tie-in games give a solid indication of why this actually makes way more sense for Netflix than it ever did for Google. When Google pitched Stadia, it talked up what Google offered (the power of its very impressive computers), but it was never clear what the service (or its bugnuts a la carte business model) offered Google. With Netflix, the answer is obvious. You like Narcos, so you play the Narcos game, which reminds you that you like Narcos, so you watch some more Narcos. It’s a never ending loop (at least, Netflix hopes) that keeps bringing you back to the streamer.

Stadia never offered anything like that, because Google isn’t a site I go to for fun, it’s a site I go to for information. Playing Cyberpunk 2077 on Stadia might prompt me to Google guides for Cyberpunk, but so might playing Cyberpunk on PS5. The Stadia of it all was irrelevant — I’m already in the Google ecosystem. In the end, Netflix’s crass commercial instinct to tie its games and TV together may be the thing that makes it a long-term contender.