Netflix has outlined its strategy around gaming, and the company is going big. The streamer said during its latest earnings briefing that it has 80+ games in development currently, with the aim of releasing at least one new game per month into the Netflix Stories app.
Netflix co-CEO and president Greg Peters began by telling people why Netflix is involved in gaming in the first place, and that’s to make money. He said the global gaming market, minus Russia and China, accounts for $150 billion in annual revenue–and that’s also excluding revenue from ads. A key differentiator for Netflix’s video game releases is that they have no microtransactions or ads. Peters, however, alluded to the possibility of ad-based games in the future, saying ad-based revenue for games is not part of the “current” Netflix model. He didn’t rule anything out for the future.
Netflix Games launched around three years ago, and so far, Peters said Netflix “happy with the progress” that the company has seen. “We’ve set ourselves pretty aggressive engagement growth targets. And we’ve met those, exceeded those in many cases,” he said.