Netflix has been betting on video games for some time as a way to offer added value to its subscribers, who have experienced a huge drop. Although video games fit in with Netflix’s line of content, the truth is that they are not doing it to the same extent with users. At least that’s what a report reveals. CNBC, that leaves no doubt about how badly this Netflix project is doing.
And it is that the company has been implementing the games since last November as a way to keep users interested between the launches of many of its contents. And its bet is to expand its video game catalog from 24 to 50 by the end of the yearwhich represents a significant investment, both in resources and money.
Netflix games are also limited to subscribers and must be downloaded as separate apps. They could be, as free, a way to bring new users to your platform, but they are intended more as an additional service within the subscription. Nevertheless, Few of your subscribers are downloading the games.
According to the aforementioned medium, Netflix titles have only been downloaded a total of 23.3 million times in total. It may seem like a lot, but in perspective it is little. Very little. On average they have 1.7 million daily users, according to Apptopia, an app analytics company. Those almost two million daily users are not even 1% of Netflix’s 221 million subscribers.
Games on Netflix: experimentation and slow growth
A huge investment that barely takes advantage of 1%. In fact, that’s almost half of the total subscribers Netflix lost in the second quarter, one million. Just after losing another 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter. Enormously relevant figures considering that it is its first decline in subscribers in more than a decade.
All in all, it seems that the company will continue betting on games, at least in the medium term. Netflix COO Greg Peters said last year that the company took “many months and frankly years” in learning how games can keep customers in service. Although with these figures it is not clear that they are achieving it:
“We are going to be experimental and try a lot of things. But I would say that the prize is in the long term by focusing more on our ability to create properties that are connected to the universes, the characters, the stories that we are building.
Greg Peters at the results presentation.
However, despite these figures and the ambition to reach 50 games by the end of the year, the company is taking it easy. In fact, Leanne Loombe, Netflix’s director of external games, already relaxed expectations about this bet:
“We’re still intentionally keeping things a little bit quiet because we’re still learning and experimenting and trying to figure out what things are going to really resonate with our members, what games people want to play.”
Leanne Loombe, head of Netflix, during a panel at the Tribeca Film Festival in June.
Be that as it may, at the moment beyond experimentation, the results are quite scarce. Always, yes, compared to the total number of Netflix subscribers who use the games.