We spoke to Bill Jackson, creative director at Netflix’s Boss Fight studio, late last year about the launch of Squid Game: Unleashed – the streaming giant’s first ‘completely free’ mobile game release.
Jackson is the lead on that game and also oversees the Netflix Stories series of interactive romance games, so knows exactly how Netflix decides to greenlight games internally. Given the wealth of Netflix TV shows and films Boss Fight and other Netflix-owned studios Next Games, Spry Fox, Night School and its Helsinki studio can choose from, we thought we’d quiz Jackson further about how that process works.
Squid Game was the most obvious and most-requested game adaptation from Netflix customers, Jackson told us. And just like its TV shows and films, Netflix is being led by user data to commission which games get made next, he says.
“Yes, we know a lot about how the shows do, and who likes them, and that helps us so much to understand the players that will play games about that show,” Jackson told us.
“We could also create something completely unique, but if we are working with an IP, we want to make sure we do the best job for the fandom of that IP, and that starts with us collaborating with the creators of the IP to really understand their fandom,” Jackson continued. “We have to get excited as a game maker, and then when we do, that’s how the games get honed in and pitched.”
Boss Fight is also “always prototyping a little, to make sure that we try new things,” said Jackson.
So as Jackson tells it, Netflix’s internal teams are not simply ticking off game adaptations for Netflix’s most popular movies and shows one by one – there needs to be a good central idea that his developers are excited about. But surely, we suggest, it’s a much harder pitch internally if you have a new, risky idea compared to one based on an already-popular show, right? Jackson argues that that’s not necessarily the case.
“You know, probably before I got here, I would have felt that was true, but I actually don’t think it’s that black and white,” he told us. “If you’re inspired by a show, then it makes sense. We have one of the great advantages – we’d be able to get access to that team and work collaboratively to make it,” he told us.
“But also, there are other ways to go and another way is you have a great game idea in a great world that you want to express, and the starting point is games.”
“We could easily find ourselves doing something original as a project, or picking another idea based on just whatever is inspiring us that I think will work here [at Netflix]. Netflix is about great content, whatever the source.”
That last part about new IP may have changed since we spoke, though. Last week, Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters said Netflix Games is ‘refocusing on narrative, party, kids and known-IP games’.
Peters also said Netflix games will be putting out social and party games intended to be “a successor to family board game night” or “an evolution of what the game show on TV used to be.”
With Netflix games under new senior management too, it appears its developers may have to make their pitches even tighter to fit that new brief.
