Netflix has been pushing further into the realm of gaming in recent years. It started with the experimental Black Mirror: Bandersnatch and Carmen Sandiego: To Steal or Not to Steal, which did fairly well. Now they’ve moved on to more traditional, simple game styles for mobile it’s been a little more of an awkward rollout. It’s a big change from creating and acquiring movies and series for their audiences, which they’ve definitely gotten good at over the years, and maybe that’s where their gaming success lies. Rather than trying to push small traditional genres, perhaps they should stick to narratives and create indie-style adventures.
Netflix has found its stride in original series and movies with several hits, meaning they clearly know their audiences and are great at letting creators do their things. They could easily transfer some of this knowledge into indie narrative games and let game creators show what they can do. They don’t need to be Bandersnatch style choose your own adventure games. There is plenty of variety in gaming when it comes to a good story, without needing over-the-top graphics or intricate gameplay.
Netflix could easily find indie developers looking to make great storied games similar to Life Is Strange, Spiritfarer and even the Dark Anthology. This doesn’t imply that they need to be long or have high-end graphics, just that a great story can be told with any number of mechanics. There are also plenty of horror games that simply tell stories while the player does puzzles like Stories Untold or Five Nights at Freddy’s. There are a number of ways to create a good narrative game and plenty of developers out there looking to get their game out to audiences.
Currently, Netflix Games are only available through the Netflix app on Android and iOS and its games are free to Netflix subscribers. This would work perfectly to introduce their audience, casual or hardcore gamers and even those new to this type of game. It’s an interesting model that could work well for small devs pitching a game as they wouldn’t need to rely on sales as much. Netflix has the potential to stumble on a great indie hit and all they have to do is stick to what they know while getting their feet wet in the world of video games.