Earlier this month, Netflix launched its first “Game Night” event, a cluster of easily accessible party games that families and friends can play together in person on their smartphones with a built-in controller app, in tandem with their TV sets.
Four years after the formation of Netflix’s first video game division and following several closures of its own gaming studios, it may seem like the streamer is distancing itself from its solo mobile game efforts. LIkewise, its once lofty ambition to break into the AAA space with its own multiplayer shooter is long dead.
None of that matters, as the streaming service isn’t competing with other gaming entities. Rather, it’s setting its sights on the kingpin of video streaming: YouTube.
With Hollywood’s streaming competitors failing to loosen Netflix’s grip on the market, time share is the competitive metric on which the leading streamer needs to improve. YouTube commands just over 50% more market share for watching video than Netflix does in the U.S., per Nielsen.
That’s where games come in.
YouTube parent Google became a new entrant in the video gaming space in 2019 with the Stadia streaming service. But its AAA ambitions were hampered by starting from scratch — with zero subscribers — and employing a model of upfront charges for a Stadia streaming box, paid subscription tiers and additional costs for individual game titles.
Stadia was shuttered in January 2023, more than a year after Netflix launched its first mobile games. Without it, Google has only YouTube’s Playables offering for casual games, which quietly launched in 2023.
“We have a golden ticket: the opportunity to reinvent the way people play games but also engage and reengage with IP and world(s) they are familiar with,” said Netflix president of games Alain Tascan before a prerecorded presentation for Game Night on Nov. 12 in Hollywood.
Reengagement is the key word there. Netflix is betting people who gather to play games on Netflix-compatible devices will easily switch over to the streamer’s programming before and after these gaming sessions, which is the best way for it to boost the amount of time subscribers engage with the service on a daily basis.
Jeet Shroff, Netflix’s VP of game tech and portfolio development, was far more blunt during the presentation. “Let’s say it’s Friday night, dinner’s done, and you’re looking for something to do,” Shroff said. “Forget fumbling through that board game closet — just open up Netflix.”
As much as Netflix wants people playing games on the service, the core offerings still rely heavily on licensed titles including LEGO Party, Pictionary: Game Night and Tetris Time Warp, but tie-in exclusives such as Dead Man’s Party: A Knives Out Game are on the way as well.
The streamer isn’t done licensing premium games, either, as Grand Theft Auto publisher Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption remaster is also coming to Netflix.
There was one standout title, however.
Best Guess Live, available only to U.S. subscribers, is a live weekday mobile game show, hosted by Hunter March and Howie Mandel, in which players have five rounds to guess a word and can score big if they’re among the first to get it right.
“You could win a life-changing amount of money each and every day, and it takes no time. It’s easy, and you just have your phone,” Mandel told us when we played Best Guess Live together after the prerecorded presentation.
YouTube may still be head honcho in video streaming, but having a built-in gaming ecosystem could be just what Netflix needs to compete for more consumer time.
