Throughout the year, Netflix has been bleeding subscribers and losing revenue amid competition. The streaming giant is looking to branch out into other ways to monetize, including introducing ads for the first time through a partnership with Microsoft. Netflix has also been making increasing moves into gaming and is now cementing those goals with the launch of a game studio.
Located in Helsinki, Finland, the studio has yet to be given a name. However, it will be led by Marko Lastikka, who has previously worked with EA, Digital Chocolate, and Zynga. It seems Netflix has chosen Finland as one of the bases of its gaming aspirations.
Earlier this year, the company bought Next Games, a studio based in Helsinki. Summing up its whole gaming goals, Netflix says it wants to “build a world-class games studio that will bring a variety of delightful and deeply engaging original games…to our hundreds of millions of members around the world.”
Expansion
Other studios that Netflix has acquired are Boss Fight Entertainment and Night School Studio. Hardly major names, but perhaps a showcase that the company is targeting social gaming more than it is console/PC gaming.
Services like Xbox Cloud Gaming allow triple A titles to run over the cloud. Many have thought Netflix could become a hub for such games. While a future partnership with Microsoft and other cloud gaming providers is possible, it seems Netflix is focusing on casual gaming for its own output.
This has been the case since Netflix Games launched in 2021 as a mobile gaming division.
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