Netflix, the giant streaming platform is planning to launch its own video game studio. The announcement has been made this September and received a wide range of reactions.
Some of the loyal Netflix fans were happy about the news and said they were looking forward to playing Netflix’s original games. Others believed that this decision is only a means to raise sales numbers after the platform had already taken other measures for this exact purpose.
In case you didn’t know, in April 2022 Netflix announced that it lost 200.000 subscribers in the first three months of the year, which was the first quarterly loss for the platform since 2011. Things did not go better in the following months either, as Netflix registered the biggest loss of subscribers in its whole history, with almost a million subscribers canceling their subscriptions between April and July 2022.
The first action Netflix took in order to try to improve its financial situation was the introduction of ads at the beginning of movies and episodes of TV series. The platform forbade ads about cryptocurrency, politics, free spins no deposit win real money UK and other types of casino promotions such as the no deposit bonus and the free spins bonus, which was good news for some fans. Besides making sure that the viewers won’t be seeing any free welcome bonus no deposit required commercials, politics, or cryptocurrency ads, Netflix also reduced the price of the subscriptions, which also bought positive reactions.
Now, the next step Netflix is about to make is to expand into the world of gaming. The streaming platform already has some experience in this industry, as in the past it bought some small gaming companies, such as Boss Fight Entertainment and Night School Studio. Netflix has also released some series on games, such as Arcane, inspired by League of Legends, and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, inspired by Cyberpunk: 2077. Moreover, Netflix has 35 games available to download via Netflix.
Irish Cybersecurity Firm Smarttech247 Completes London IPO, now Valued at €42.7m
EY Unveils First Fintech Incubator in London
Now, the platform decided that it was time to step up the game and launch officially in the gaming industry by opening its own video game studio from scratch. The studio will locate in the capital of Finland, Helsinki, and will be led by the former executive of Zynga and Electronic Arts, Marko Lastikka.
Netflix chose Helsinki because it already had a strong relationship with the game developer of Next Games, a game studio that locates in Helsinki. The developer of Next Games has produced a mobile game that was based on Stranger Things, one of Netflix’s greatest hits in terms of TV series.
Annakaisa Kultima, who is a gaming researcher living in Helsinki, claimed that Netflix knows how game development works in Helsinki and this is why they chose it as the location for the new game studio: “We have the reputation of doing pretty well for the past decade or two in the game industry, but games are not labeled where they were made.
From that perspective, I think that’s the reason, they know that talent is based in Finland – [Clash of Clans developer] Supercell is in Helsinki in the city center, and [Angry Birds developer] Rovio Entertainment and [Control developer] Remedy Entertainment is in Espoo, which borders the city.”
Besides this, Netflix is also working closely with Ubisoft, as it plans to release both a series on the game Assassin’s Creed and a Netflix-exclusive mobile game. We still have to see whether Netflix will stick to mobile games only or produce games that work on desktops as well. What is certain, however, is that iGaming is not a part of the equation.
Netflix never mentioned anything about teaming up with casinos with free spins no deposit, no matter whether we’re talking about casinos with no deposit free spins Uk or other foreign casinos that offer free spins no deposit bonus promotions. Thus said, no matter what the financial situation of Netflix is or how the project will turn out, you can be sure you won’t be seeing any iGaming products you can find at any type of free spins no deposit casino.
