Video games are having a sweet moment, especially in Spain, where 18 million players and a turnover of over 2 billion Euros make our country one of the most ‘games’ in Europe in 2022. According to a Gfk study, roblox It is the favorite streaming platform of the little ones (4 to 15 years old). twitch adolescents and young people (16 to 34 years old) and ‘Sugar Butter’The game where adults spend the most time over 45 years old And over 65 years old. Spanish ‘seniors’ spend an average of nine hours a month playing with the famous colored balls, more than on WhatsApp or Instagram.
A final revolution looms over this panorama, which aims, above all, to seduce those who do not see themselves as ‘players’ and probably do not see themselves as ‘players’. You don’t have a console in your home. And that goes hand in hand with Netflix, which is already available in many Spanish homes. The platform has been offering games for a long time, but now it has taken a new step; You can play games from home on the TV screen by using your mobile phone as a ‘joystick’.
The limits of ‘cloud games’
And Netflix Games just announced its first steps to make games more accessible. Its plan is that we can also watch them on TVs and computer via Netflix.com. Curiously, if we played these on TV, we would use the cell phone as a controller., after downloading an application. The days of having too much stuff to play video games in the living room may be over (starting). Some premium subscribers from Canada and the UK are already testing the beta version of this system ‘on stream’.
It’s about going beyond the confines of iOS and Android. Test the limits of “cloud games” or games in the cloud, allowing users to play over the network without the need to download and install games on any device. A project that didn’t go so well for Google: Last September, it announced the shutdown of Stadia, a video game streaming service that led it to set up its own studio to create custom games. But the great tech is not giving up and is working on Playables, an initiative that, according to various rumors and reports, will allow users to play games online via YouTube.
Do Netflix subscribers know that the platform is also a kind of video game service? Last year, less than 1% of the massive subscriber base was testing thought-provoking book offers. Many do not know that this option exists; Others know this but forget. One of the reasons for this moderate popularity may be the particular complexity of access: you don’t need to get into the ‘app’ and start playing, but 1) look for some non-obvious games; 2) being redirected to the Apple or Android store; 3) wait for the game’s own ‘app’ to download and 4) redefine yourself on Netflix to be able to play.
From the DVD to the console’s future
almost modest DVD rental company by mailNetflix has become know-it-all broadcast platform and major production company TV series and movies all over the world. But his passions go beyond a single field of entertainment. He wants to be now (or now with special power) video game poweran industry that appears to be the main threat in competition for the planet’s eyeballs.
Already in 2017, the company wanted to calm the anticipation of a comeback. ‘Foreign things’ with a mobile video game with graphics from the eighties. At Christmas 2018 I was still exploring the cutting edge of interactive entertainment. ‘Bandersnatch’A special episode of ‘Black Mirror’ where the viewer can influence the course of the action. in a close line ‘Kaleidoscope’The latest heist series, whose episodes can be watched in preferred order without a global understanding of the story, ends up with a lot of pain.
use the original series
Notably, on November 2, 2021, Netflix officially announced the main titles of its first offering, ‘Stranger Things: 1984′ (game released in 2017) and another game based on the same phenomenon, the video game division. Stranger Things 3: Game’. There was a clear commitment to Transmedia narrative, narrative that emerges through multiple platforms (movies, video games, novels, comics); Also an open initiative generate the best possible income from their own successful franchises.
Betting not only on distribution, but also on the creation of video games from scratch, Netflix may also find intellectual property that can be exploited in other formats.as other people have done to video games, such as ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ and ‘League of legends’ whose worlds are inspired by the animated series ‘Cyberpunk: Edgerunners’ And ‘Mysterious’Both were very well received.
Your most important game
In September 2021, Netflix announced: Acquisition of independent game studio Night SchoolKnown for 2016’s surprise hit ‘Oxenfree’, the groundbreaking point-and-click adventure of a young girl trying to escape a mysterious island using supernatural allies. new sequel, ‘Oxenfree II: Lost signals’Available for PC, PlayStation, Switch and mobile, the game received well-deserved accolades in ‘The New York Times’ (“spooky, funny, and complex emotions”) and ‘The Guardian’ (“a slow-paced, uplifting adventure”) . as well as other reference tools.
The merger of the ‘streaming’ giant with Night School seems more or less natural: both companies see themselves as creators of worlds but above all storytellers. At the same time, Netflix doesn’t want to risk its future in video games on one card, one style, one ally. He hasn’t stopped buying studios over the past two years, and has also created several studios of his own, one in Helsinki and the other in California.
Amazon also tried
ten years ago, Amazon had already done the same by establishing Amazon Game Studios.A project in which it usually invests about 500 million dollars a year does not always give satisfactory results. Its successes are less well known than its disappointments: from the failed response to ‘Fortnite’ to ‘Crucible’ to the massively multiplayer role-playing video game ‘New World’. It was abandoned by half of its users within two months. They are luckier as editors than creators: Role-playing game ‘The Lost Ark’According to SteamDB data, the game, prepared by two South Korean studios, maintained a significant player average throughout 2022.
everything for everyone
Netflix’s library of games has absolutely everything, usually compared to a hypermarket (for better or for worse), as does its catalog of series, movies and ‘reality shows’. There are titles for casual games in the subway and other games that offer immersive experiences. There are easy ones and there are complex ones. There are poetic ones (‘Laya’s horizon’an open world adventure to fly around an island) and shabby ones too (they interactive versions) ‘We are playing without fire’, the dating ‘reality’ of the house). You can make recipes in Bikini Bottom (‘SpongeBob: Cooking’) or learn to checkmate like Beth Harmon (‘Queen’s Gambit Chess’), as well as trying the puzzles in ‘Cut the ip daily’, the catalog’s first game to originate in Barcelona.
Today the list of proposals reaches seventy titles. There are seventy more in development and Forty new games expected to be released by the end of 2023. What is not clear is that one of them will be an ambitious cross-platform game with Joseph Staten (a former patron of the popular ‘Halo’ saga) as creative director. The big adventures of the video game require their (long) time.