Things haven’t gone well for Netflix recently. Amid losses on their streaming service, Netflix is turning towards video games as support.
The company has seen their stock plummet from over $300 a share to only roughly $180 as of the time of writing. This was in due part of the news regarding the subscriber growth, or more accurately the decrease in subscriber count for the first time in a decade.
There have been reports claiming that the company lost 700,000 subscribers for discontinuing their services in Russia due to the invasion and war between the country and Ukraine.
Though Netflix has stated that competition with Hulu and Disney+ is the primary cause for this decline in subscribers, blame has also been placed on password sharing accounts.
News of Netflix entering the gaming sphere are not new. They had announced their intention on entering the space last year. Since then, they have released some games like Stranger Things: 1984 on their platform as well as mobile games for Android and iOS users.
A new report (via WaPo) suggests they aren’t going to be slowing down these plans anytime soon.
The giant streaming platform plans on having 50 games released by the end of the year. This seems to be a hefty goal to reach considering they only own three game development studios right now (Boss Fight Entertainment, Next Games, and Night School Studio).
Still, in terms of searching for ways to garner revenue, or in the case of Netflix, sustain subscriber growth, video gaming has proven to be a strong moneymaker.
In 2020, the gaming industry had $179.7 billion in revenue and is considered to be a much larger market compared to that of movies. With projections of them reaching over $500 billion in the next five years, it is no surprise that Netflix would consider it a strong idea to focus on amidst their current struggles.
This is Niche Culture. In this column, we regularly cover anime, geek culture, and things related to video games. Please leave feedback and let us know if there’s something you want us to cover!
