Netflix announced their plan to expand its evolving video game strategy at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
This comes after Netflix replaced their gaming leadership last year when they added Alain Tascan, who had spent decades working at Epic Games, Ubisoft Entertainment SA and Electronic Arts, and Jeet Shroff who worked at Epic, Sony Santa Monica and more.
As part of the new gaming upgrade, Netflix has announced their first MMO called Spirit Crossing which allows you and a group of friends to work on and nurture your village alongside a slate of other games.
Netflix plans to work on smaller-scale games that solely live on their app across TVs and televisions as opposed to console games, after previous attempts at a big-budget multiplayer shooter that were axed.
“I don’t want this move to be seen as, ‘We’re not going to do big ambitious games,'” Tascan said in an interview at the event.
“It was just the genre of the game, I don’t think was matching the platform.
“This team was really good at what they were doing, but we wouldn’t have been the best partner for them to express their skills and their expertise.”
Tascan outlined that the streamer's four areas of focus in gaming would be party games, kids games, narrative games and “mainstream games”.
He said the point of the games is to eliminate points of fraction, such as the need for an expensive console to play these games. The games will all be available with a Netflix subscription and will not include any advertisements or microtransactions.
Netflix first dabbled in games before with its interactive titles. However, as of December this year, only four of the 24 interactive titles will remain.
The remaining titles will be: Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend, Ranveer vs. Wild with Bear Grylls, and You vs. Wild.
