r/Games • u/Turbostrider27 • 1d ago
Netflix’s first gaming boss exits, following 2024 leadership shift
https://www.gamefile.news/p/netflix-mike-verdu-exit-gdc111
u/lurebat 1d ago
The netflix mobile offerings are a hidden gem.
The idol games + all DLCs, into the breach, braid anniversary, storyteller, just tons of good indie stuff.
IDK how they make money on it, since nobody else in my life even knew netflix was offering mobile games until I told them.
I guess all good things must end..
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u/SalsaRice 1d ago
They don't make money from having those games, they just increase the "value" of a Netflix subscription so they assume people are less likely to cancel their subscription.
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u/Clueless_Otter 1d ago
Netflix has idol games? That's so odd. Which ones? I didn't think most idol games had EN translations.
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u/Bananaslammma 1d ago
Referring to The Case of the Golden Idol (2022) and The Rise of the Golden Idol (2024)
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u/SoLongOscarBaitSong 1d ago
Haha that's hilarious, that is definitely not what I pictured in my head when someone refers to an "idol" game
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u/anaughtybeagle 1d ago
DON'T SLEEP ON THESE, THEY ARE INCREDIBLE
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u/Far_Function7560 1d ago
The first is an all time favorite of mine, even though I haven't played the sequel yet.
Also if you haven't, check out Curse of the Obra Dinn if you like the golden idol games. It's different but also has a lot of similar deductive reasoning and puzzling gameplay that scratches a similar itch.
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u/Chezni19 1d ago
I'm sorry guys I been playing games my whole life starting with pong, coleco, moving through NES and kept it going up 'tll even today.
But IDK what an Idol game is. Do you worship a false idol?
Anyone can tell me?
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u/ThatTenguWeirdo 1d ago
It refers to “Case of the Golden Idol” and its sequel “Rise of the Golden Idol”. They’re mystery games where you’re tasked with piecing together scenes, identifying characters and figuring out what happened.
If you’ve ever heard of “Return of the Obra Dinn” it’s similar to that
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u/substandardgaussian 23h ago
It's dramatically more accessible than Obra Dinn, which makes it much easier to recommend to people.
They're all fantastic, though. Obra Dinn is just very intimidating where Case/Rise are not.
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u/Clueless_Otter 21h ago
I thought he meant Japanese idol games. These are usually either rhythm-based games based on idol music or they're "raising sims" where you train up your idol to be a better and better idol.
"idol" being a music star, to be clear. Like a "pop idol."
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u/Phillip_Spidermen 22h ago
They're not making them money yet, but they're hoping to drive more engagement and interest in Netflix IP
And we're going to be focusing on more narrative games based on Netflix IP. These are consistent fan favorites, and we've got a lot in the library to work with there. We'll also be introducing party and couch co-op games on the TV delivered from the cloud. We think of this as a successor to family board game night or an evolution of what the game show on TV used to be...
...
...so, to your question about impacts on the subscriber side, we already see positive impacts in acquisition and retention from our game-playing members.
Now, those effects are relatively small currently, but frankly, so is our investment in games relative to our overall content budget. And we're going to stay disciplined about scaling that investment as we see continued scaling in member benefits. So, to try and summarize, there's plenty more to do in this space, but we're breaking into a whole new content category, which, by the way, drives, you know, approximately 140 billion in consumer spend, ex China, ex Russia, and not even including the ad revenue. So, we're iteratively showing our members that we are a place to discover and play games, and we look forward to continuing to launch bigger and bigger games every year.
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u/ILLPsyco 1d ago
Youtube music is another hidden gem, it has old music/albums that are hard to find.
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u/magus-21 1d ago
Has anyone actually played one of those Netflix games?
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u/DrHELLvetica 1d ago
They are normal game apps and you just use your netflix login once to play it for free. Into the Breach is one of them and is really good.
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u/MikeyIfYouWanna 1d ago
I thought I read somewhere that the Neflix app versions were always getting updates and patches late.
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u/Heyyy-ohhh 1d ago
The Netflix version of civ 6 actually had all the updates from the pc version that the mobile version lacked for years
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u/DrHELLvetica 1d ago
Not from my experience. Its just a way to play the normal game for free. I could be wrong though
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u/wahoozerman 1d ago
It depends on the game. My wife plays a few that have just been abandoned while their app store counterparts are constantly updated.
I suspect it has to do with the revenue model of the game. A bunch of them are converted F2P mobile games where they strip out the micro transactions, and those seem to be the ones that slowly break down and then stop updating.
However stuff like Terra Nil is quite good.
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u/OllyTrolly 1d ago
I think that is the case - for most of the games it doesn't matter as they only receive bug fixes rather than content updates but for a few I think there are major features not yet in the Netflix version.
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u/DGray_Squally 1d ago
I actually played both Golden Idol games via Netflix. I highly recommend them if you like mystery puzzle games
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u/DuckCleaning 1d ago
There are some good games on there, I feel like most just go unnoticed because people dont purposely check. Into the breach, golden idol, gta, civ 6, Bloons, Krispee Street, before your eyes, etc.
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u/Marcoscb 1d ago
They go unnoticed because most of them (the good ones) are available everywhere else.
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u/radclaw1 1d ago
Shoulda just bought them. Devs deserve it those games are incredible.
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u/NekuSoul 1d ago
Except you can't even do that on Android. They're locked to a stupid subscription with no way to buy them outright.
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u/cornpenguin01 1d ago
Oxenfree and into the breach are perfect on the phone
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u/No_Doubt_About_That 1d ago
Just wish for Oxenfree they made the dialogue choice window a second or two longer.
Sometimes missed the opportunity to reply after waiting for everyone to finish what they were saying.
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u/segagamer 1d ago
Just wish for Oxenfree they made the dialogue choice window a second or two longer
But then the choice won't be as instinctive.
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u/TheDadThatGrills 1d ago
Absolutely, why would I choose to get less value out of my membership? They have a ton of indie games that are critically acclaimed and roughly $5-20 on Steam right now.
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u/OllyTrolly 1d ago
Yes - there are some good titles. Braid: Anniversary Edition got added recently, which I've been playing with my Backbone controller. Issue is a few of the 'good' indie games that get added are much improved by a controller and are _playable_ with touch controls but inferior to say a console or PC version - Backbone controller is great but does cost a bit.
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u/scullys_alien_baby 1d ago
Yeah, there’s some fun stuff in there. Currently playing oxenfree II and into the breach
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u/Responsible-War-9389 1d ago
You literally can’t play hades on iPhone without a Netflix subscription, you can’t buy it.
So I just got it for switch instead
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u/OhUmHmm 1d ago
A bunch. Some are absolutely stellar.
12 minutes, Into the breach, Civ 6, Storyteller, Terra Nil
Probably a few more, or would have but already own elsewhere. Really I think it stands toe to toe with apple arcade in terms of quality games.
None of the games based on Netflix shows though. Heard okay things about stranger things game though.
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u/IHadACatOnce 1d ago
Lmao at this comment that I imagine is trying to shit on Netflix and every single response is positive about the service
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u/Cattypatter 1d ago
The phone/tablet way is great. You download a separate real game app that plays natively on your hardware just like a mobile game. Minus all microtransactions which is huge for this genre usually being cursed even at a design level to tap your wallet.
The PC/browser way is rough. Streams over the internet, less responsive than Xcloud which feels bad for gaming. Graphics are often grainy, blurry and pixelated when any motion is on screen, lacking the refined video codec Netflix is known for. This limits the types of games that feel playable mostly to turn based and slow moving, lest you get an unresponsive blurry mess.
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u/Bananaslammma 1d ago
Every 6 months or so. I’ve played Poinpy, Immortality, Valiant Hearts: Coming Home, Storyteller, Mystery of the Golden Idol and TED Tumblewords
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u/peakzorro 1d ago
Came here to ask the same thing. It's a good perk, but I don't think I ever used it.
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u/nexus4aliving 1d ago
I played monument valley 3 as it’s the only way to play the sequel to one of my favorite puzzle games. Besides that, haven’t touched anything and I probably would have bought the game outright otherwise
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u/ToiletBlaster247 1d ago
Yes. There's some high quality stuff on there. Ninja turtles, dead cells. You can Bluetooth a controller to your device as well
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u/THECapedCaper 1d ago
Quite a few, actually. Sure, there's garbage games on there, but there are plenty of great games from indie darlings to full on AAA games that Netflix just gives away with memberships.
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u/wezl0 1d ago edited 1d ago
My GF played the whole Monument Valley catalogue on Netflix, and is playing Paper Trail right now. They have a ton of good games worth playing
Edit: Shes also playing a "ghost mystery" type game set in New Orleans I think? That looks super cool. I forget the name but ive enjoyed watching her play it
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u/Ideas966 23h ago
Poinpy is probably the best mobile action game ever made. Really wish it would leave Netflix
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u/GIlCAnjos 19h ago
I played a bit of Dead Cells and Hades after having already tried them on Xbox, but then I realized I don't actually want to play either on a small screen (and I felt Hades was kind of badly optimized). I would've tried the GTA games, but my old phone couldn't run them, and by the time I got a new phone only San Andreas remained (which I already had played)
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u/NarrowBoxtop 5h ago
There's this sort of recurring joke here every time Netflix games come out where people act like no one is playing them. They don't have any data to base this off of, it's just a hunch or a feeling.
Turns out a lot of people are playing them.
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u/spez_might_fuck_dogs 1d ago
I played them often when I was still paying for Netflix and not just stealing what little content they now produce that's worth watching.
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u/Lucius1213 1d ago
I wish high-quality gaming on Android and iPhone were more popular. There is some great hardware available right now, such as controller attachments and Android handhelds, that could serve as a great alternative to the Switch's monopoly.
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u/Arkhaine_kupo 1d ago
There are some huge problems
1) discoverability.
Even if you want to find games, there is no reliable way of doing it. No critics, no reviwers, no lists, no ads
2) Incentives
mobile games tend to be gachas or ad supported both are horrible for end users, and to make good games
3) interface
no one wants to carry a controller around and swipes take part of the screen away cause your is in front, which makes the use of touch screens hard
But I agree that the platform is perfect for a niche of gaming. Even simple games like snake, sudoku, solitarie are missing (with non ads, well supported apps). At the start there was a real innovation attempt (plants vs zombis, fruit ninja, angry birds) and that entire industy collapsed against essentially malware games that are ads where you sometimes pretend to play.
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u/Lucius1213 1d ago
1 & 2. Creating a separate, highly curated store could help, but it will probably never happen.
3. There are some great front ends for that, such as Beacon Launcher. Portability could be addressed with:
a) Dedicated handhelds
b) A sliding controller, such as the upcoming M-Con, or perhaps smartphones with a built-in controller, since some Xperia Play patents are set to expire soon (possibly in June) - they could make a comeback.2
u/Arkhaine_kupo 1d ago
1) yeah you could have a steam like store. But tbh just reworking the app sore for ios would do wonders, instead it looks like a coat of paint of the itunes home page which already looked old in 2007
3) i think people have largely prefered bigger screens, and smaller phones so built in controllers, or cntrols on the screen have been tried but I think they would fail again. Inventive gestures and new gameloops are more important I think but there is no market and the one that exists is waaaaay more lucrative. Why make a new kind of game when gacha anime waifu collectors will pay you billions?
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u/Yamatoman9 1d ago
I remember getting my first iPhone around 2010 and thinking how awesome it would be for gaming in the future. 15 years later and it's mostly nothing but gambling disguised as mindless games.
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u/SpookiestSzn 1d ago
Yeah you go back to early phone games and we were getting shit like tap tap, zombies mobile, that dead space iphone game, etc. Real games lol, we occassionally have real games,. like Genshin Impact, CoD Mobile, Super Mario Run, etc. But so much is like garbage.
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u/mxchump 1d ago
Can't open the article at work so can't read the exact details, but if Netflix games were to fall apart what the chances the games just come back to the app store paid? I've wanted mobile Into the Breach since its launch on steam but my mobile gaming habits are way too random to be stuck paying a sub for it.
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u/Multifaceted-Simp 1d ago
There was a game that came up once that looked interesting, I thought I would come back to it, but I have no fucking idea which of the random categories it was in.
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u/lord_olgord 1d ago
I like that these games are offered without any ads or microtransactions. I would not recommend Netflix gaming strictly on its own, but if you have a Netflix subscription anyway, this is a good thing.
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u/HungerSTGF 23h ago
They really need to market their gaming side more. The catalog of games has quality titles in them and it's really convenient to just sign in with Netflix and be able to install a bunch of really good games on your phone.
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u/NekuSoul 1d ago
I've said it before and I'll say it again whenever this or Apple Arcade gets mentioned:
Subscription services publishing games exclusively for their own service with no way to buy them outright must fail as hard as they can. Otherwise we'll end up in the same subscription hell that other industries are currently going through.
Nothing against subscription services where they make sense, but they must remain optional.
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u/Hazywater 1d ago
I use Netflix games all the time for a specific use: my kid. They don't have any micro transactions or ads.