Netflix gift cards are seen at a store in Krakow, Poland on June 13, 2022.
Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Netflix announced on Monday that it will open an in-house games studio in Finland.
This is the company’s first foray into in-house game development since the streaming giant entered the mobile gaming space in November 2021. The company has already bought three external game studios in the past year. Netflix bought Next Games, also based in Finland, for about $72 million.
Netflix already has a cache of over 20 mobile games available for download to Netflix subscribers, and the company plans to have 50 by the end of the year. The catalog includes Stranger Things: 1984 and Queen’s Gambit Chess based on Netflix series.
The streamer’s foray into gaming is still in its infancy, but not many Netflix subscribers were playing in August. According to Apptopia, less than 1% of Netflix’s 220 million subscribers engage with the games every day. Netflix didn’t immediately respond to a question about its gaming involvement.
The company, which has been losing subscribers overall in recent quarters, promoted the newly announced studio as a place for Netflix to develop games in-house alongside its existing subsidiary studios, which also include Night School Studio and Boss Fight Entertainment.
“We’re just getting started and we still have work to do to provide a great gaming experience on Netflix,” said Netflix VP of Game Studios Amir Rahimi in a statement. “Developing a game can take years, so I’m proud to see how we continue to build the foundation of our game studios in our first year.”
The company said its games will have no ads and no in-app purchases. Currently, users can see the games offered in the Netflix app, but the games themselves are downloaded as individual apps.