GoKawiilThis is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on Netflix, follow Andrew Webster. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.
How it started
Boggle has become a spectator sport in my household. Everyone crowds around the TV while one of us plays, and the crowd either helps shout out words or waits patiently for their turn. There’s a lot of yelling. But it’s a game that my family can hop into easily, and once someone starts playing, it seems everyone slowly drifts into the room to join in. The surprising part is that the experience is happening entirely through Netflix.
The streaming giant has been trying to crack gaming for half a decade now, and outside of a few rare hits like Grand Theft Auto and Squid Game: Unleashed, it hasn’t made much of a dent. But with its relatively new TV games, which launched last year and include the likes of Boggle as well as party games based on everything from Lego to Knives Out, Netflix may have finally figured out gaming that makes sense for the service. You don’t even need controllers: Each player just uses their own smartphone.
As Netflix continues to expand beyond traditional TV and movie offerings, getting into everything from live sports to talent competitions with audience interaction, these kinds of games could eventually become a pillar of the service. And it all starts with Boggle.
How it’s going
It’s been a rough road to this point. Netflix first started rolling out games in 2021, and initially, it seemed like a great deal. Games are included as part of a regular subscription, and at first the service offered a nicely curated selection of mobile games. There were ports of beloved indie titles like the sci-fi strategy game Into the Breach, as well as exclusive titles like the exhilarating adventure Laya’s Horizon. These sat alongside games based on Netflix shows like The Queen’s Gambit and Love Is Blind. If you were looking for high-quality games for your phone, Netflix was a surprisingly great platform.
The problem is that few people seemed to notice — early reports suggested that less than 1 percent of subscribers actually played games. This didn’t stop Netflix from trying. It invested heavily in the space, adding major games to the platform, acquiring developers, and at one point even trying to build a AAA level studio of its own. But there was no consistency, and the strategy shifted constantly.
Gaming is not an easy space to compete in. Other wealthy companies like Amazon have largely struggled to make headway, and even massively popular games like Fortnite are struggling. The issue with Netflix, though, is that its gaming efforts always felt separate from everything else it was doing. Hades on my phone is cool, but it’s also something I had to actively know about and search for. It’s not something I can stumble on while browsing Netflix, and it’s not something that will keep me in the main Netflix app, which is what the company wants.
But the new TV games solve that issue. Before, Netflix’s games were separate apps you downloaded on your phone. Now they’re found in the same place as everything else on Netflix — there’s a tab at the top of the app alongside movies and television — making them seamlessly feel like part of the service. My family can watch Wake Up Dead Man and then immediately play a Knives Out–themed mystery game afterwards. Games are no longer a separate service Netflix operates, they’re just part of Netflix.
... continue reading