Is Netflix developing a gamig platform?

Yesterday, Netflix announced as part of its quarterly profits report to investors the launch of a project dedicated to in-platform gaming. The news comes a short time after the hiring of Mike Verdu, a former executive of EA Games and Oculus, who is expected to head the new division and the extension of the contract with showrunner Shonda Rhimes which also includes movies and video games. Here's what Netflix said:

«We’re also in the early stages of further expanding into games, building on our earlier efforts around interactivity (eg, Black Mirror Bandersnatch) and our Stranger Things games. We view gaming as another new content category for us, similar to our expansion into original films, animation and unscripted TV. Games will be included in members’ Netflix subscription at no additional cost similar to films and series. Initially, we’ll be primarily focused on games for mobile devices».

The idea would therefore be to create a sort of gaming library similar to that of Steam, which allows users to save video games in their account without downloading them and therefore occupying the memory of the devices. The project makes sense in the broader context of Netflix's commercial expansion, which just ten days ago presented Netflix Shop, an e-commerce platform on which to buy official merch of series and movies. According to the profit report for the second quarter of 2021, in fact, Netflix had 1.5 million more subscribers in the second quarter – a number slightly higher than the already modest expectations of the company that had expected to total 6 million new subscribers already in the first quarter, lowering the forecast to one million new subscribers in the second with a revenue of 7.3 billion dollars. 

The company is therefore trying to diversify its offer, as well as to differentiate it from that of its many competitors, also considering how the results of the collaboration with the Halston brand, thanks to the media momentum acquired by Ryan Murphy's mini-series, have so far been excellent. Among the many possible strategies, the introduction of gaming in the Netflix offer certainly seems one of the most interesting: already this year, in fact, the gaming world has started a fruitful dialogue with that of fashion, with Gucci collaborations with Roblox, 100 Thieves and Pokemon GO! and that of Louis Vuitton with League of Legends; with the platform launched by Balenciaga to present the FW21 collection and the various presentations of Dior and Burberry with Twitch.