Rumour Netflix to Produce AAA PC Game

gabbo

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Eurogamer is reporting that Netflix gaming studio is looking to produce an Action RPG according to job listings on their website.
Thought this might be worth it's own thread.

Netflix is developing a triple-A PC game, based on recent job listings posted for its game studio.
The job openings are available at the newly-formed Los Angeles developer, Netflix Games Studio, which was announced by the company's vice president of gaming Mike Verdu last month. The team is being lead by former Overwatch executive producer Chacko Sonny.
They also want to make this multimedia with other tie-ins, and have a narrative on the same level as Netflix's own original works. This of course means it could run the gamut from absolute garbage to deep and engaging prestige-tv level writing. Apparently they'll be using Unreal Engine, so I expect to hear about an Epic/EGS partnership for this, because Netflix is already a flaming money pit, why not waste some of Sweeney's cash on this a well?

I can only imagine this being GAAS since they want to have tie-ins and as such, will want both to be ongoing for engagement numbers..
Or maybe this be struck down like one of their original shows/animation, that is, too soon? Could the tie in be better? Will this ever make it past the rumour/development stage?
I think all valid questions
 

Dinjoralo

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Netflix getting into gaming, if nothing else, probably has better odds of panning out than Google or Amazon. They have a lot more experience with making creative media over software, and seem to understand what makes that successful beyond the business model.
 
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gabbo

gabbo

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Netflix getting into gaming, if nothing else, probably has better odds of panning out than Google or Amazon. They have a lot more experience with making creative media over software, and seem to understand what makes that successful beyond the business model.
Do they though? This seems incredibly hit or miss year after year
edit: To be clear, totally interested to see what they develop, but I don't expect them to get the industry any better than google or amazon.
 
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ExistentialThought

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Surprising since Netflix is shifting into a leaner phase that they would consider getting into big budget games let alone keeping their existing game service. I have not known a single person in any of my family or friends who have used their existing gaming service. They do a poor job advertising the service, getting into more expensive games seems risky.

So many factors they need to consider if they want to reach the audience they are after. Tossing money at it and hiring veteran developers will not get them there, ask Google or Amazon. Even more, dropping a single high quality title is not enough to build out a platform, they would need a continual drip of games, and looking around at other established companies in the gaming industry, that is getting harder in many ways these days.

Also, how will they charge for these bigger budget games? Include them in the existing subscription or have it as a direct purchase on other PC platforms or both? I dislike the word "sustainable" after all of the Gamepass talk, but I would legitimately question the sustainability here as Netflix already has a subscription service and adding big budget games will only put more strain on it. It is a bit like how Amazon Prime has completely overloaded their subscription with anything and everything, which starts to jack up the cost for folks who may only want to use a few select parts of the service. Or they create another additional subscription for gaming and I would argue that tiny bit of friction is going to keep most folks from taking a dip into their gaming catalog and not be enough to sustain more than a handful of big games.

I could keep ranting about how I think a lot of companies are going to reevaluate their investments into gaming in the coming months and years, as I think there are a lot of baked in assumptions of how gaming has only grown and will continue to grow and is "recession-resistant", but these assumptions may be really tested in the near future.