Netflix games leaders Jeet Shroff and Alain Tascan said a new batch of party, kids, Netflix IP and big-screen games are coming this year – plus some more “surprising” and “unexpected” launches.
Today at GDC Netflix games president Alain Tascan and VP for game technology and portfolio development Jeet Shroff explained what’s next for Netflix games.
Tascan acknowledged that there’s some way to go to fulfil its ambitions in games. “Netflix games can keep people engaged between seasons, interact with their favourite IP, capture them in new ways. So we still have a lot of work to do with the gaming side and stay humble.”
“It’s a journey that we are coming into, and we need to scale and build our gaming business, but we are not yet ‘the Netflix of games’. But that’s exactly where we’re headed.”
Ex-Epic duo Tascan and Shroff talked plenty about their work on Fortnite to start the talk, saying that they wanted to bring some of that game’s cultural relevance and zeigeist-y feel to Netflix games, in particular referencing their work on the Travis Scott concert in Fortnite.
Tascan said he personally pushed for Netflix to release Squid Game: Unleashed for free to all players, where previously all of its games were for subscribers only.
Shroff also acknowledged that to begin with, the streamer was more concerned with getting as many games onto the service as possible. But what’s coming next is a little different.
“By the end of the year, we want to offer experiences that engage deeply on an emotional level with the phone as a controller, and really explore what we can do,” said Tascan.
There are several new games based on big Netflix IP like The Electric State coming down the line, and Finnish studio Next Games is also testing a new puzzle game, said Shroff.
Then, later this year, Netflix games will start to look a little different, with more “unconventional games and experiences“, said Shroff.
Tascan elaborated: “By the end of the year hopefully we will surprise a lot of you with new ways to play, new ways to experience stories, alone or with your friends, trying to blur the lines between linear and interactive.”
When asked in the post-talk Q&A about how he feels about Netflix games’ progress so far, Tascan added: “So far, we are not satisfied, because we see a lot of friction. We have the friction of discovery, the friction of the app stores when we’re talking about mobile, and the friction of the subscription.”
Tascan added later: “It’s about reaching hundreds of millions of people the same way other big games have been doing it. I mean, you know Fortnite, you know Minecraft, Roblox…this is our ambition. We have to match the overall ambition of Netflix, otherwise, we’re just a distraction.”
When asked about whether Netflix would ever release its games on consoles, Tascan questioned whether new generations of players really want to play on those devices, as Fortnite, Minecraft and Roblox players are so used to platform-agnostic experiences.
“I think they are willing and wanting to interact with any interactive digital screen, whatever it is, even in the car…[console is] limiting the way you’re going to think already, because you see console, you’re seeing high def, you’re seeing a controller.“
