Netflix is Opening its Fourth Game Studio
Netflix announced yesterday that it was opening a new game studio in Helsinki, Finland. This will be the company’s second studio in the European city following the acquisition of Next Games earlier this year.
This new game studio in Helsinki will be led by Marko Lastikka, the former VP and General Manager of Zynga. “Along with Night School Studio and Boss Fight Entertainment, these four studios, each with different strengths and focus areas, will develop games that will suit the diverse tastes of our members, the company explained,” said Amir Rahimi, VP of Game Studios at Netflix.
Netflix turned 25 in August, and the company is now exploring new areas of growth after losing almost 1.2 million subscribers in the first two quarters of 2022. Netflix games launched on iOS and Android back in November 2021, and subscribers can currently access more than 25 games with no ads or in-app purchases.
“It’s still early days, and we have much more work to do to deliver a great games experience on Netflix. Creating a game can take years, so I’m proud to see how we’re steadily building the foundation of our games studios in our first year, and look forward to sharing what we produce in the coming years,” Rahimi said.
So far, it seems that Netflix’s first games have received very little attention from gamers. According to app analytics company Apptopia (via CNBC), Netflix games have been downloaded a total of 23.3 million times since launch and get 1.7 million daily users on average. This represents less than 1% of Netflix’s 221 million subscribers.