Netflix announces they will soon have a video game streaming service

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/netflix-will-soon-stream-games-to-your-phone-when-its-coming-what-games-more/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-14/netflix-plans-to-offer-video-games-in-expansion-beyond-films-tv

"We think the time is right to learn more about how our members value games”

A couple of days ago Netflix announced they would release a gaming service for phones and tablets where users could play games on their Netflix subscription with no extra cost. The games will be ad-free. the app should work similarly to Luna or Stadia, but if you already have a Netflix subscription (unlike Youtube subscriptions with Stadia or Amazon Prime with Luna), you won't have to pay any more for the gaming service. 

Netflix has no word on what the games will be like. Former Electronic Arts and Facebook executive Mike Verdu has been hired for the project. Netflix will create game spin-offs of Netflix properties (get ready for My Octopus Teacher: The Game, lol) and hopes to make games they one day adapt into movies or Shows. 

The service is in very early development. Although, Netflix plans to start adding games in 2022. 

Although the service will first be exclusive for mobile devices and that is what Netflix wants to focus on at the moment, Netflix has said that it is possible that in the future, they might be able to add games to Playstation, Xbox, and PC. 

How do you feel about this new streaming service? Do you think it will just be free advertising for Netflix to gain more streamers, or do you think this actually sounds promising, and you're excited about its release?

I'm really excited about this! Netflix rarely fails to deliver, in my opinion. They have made some incredible films in the past, and I imagine their games will not suffer in quality. 

i think it will be succesfull because of how big netflix is already but i dunno games are not the same thing as movies or music you cant stream it without losing quality be it video quality or simply input lag while it also requires a good connection and any delay you have can cost you a lot on more fast paced games

i dont see it becoming the "future of games" no mather how fast internet speeds get

Netflix feels like the first company that can make streaming games a reality since they already have a large enough fanbase to introduce to the concept, and this terrifies the living shit out of me. I already hate streaming enough due to the associated loss of ownership, and it's even worse with games for me. Please don't let this be the future of games, the present of games as a service is already bad enough.

Netflix already has a few choose-your-own-adventure style games (Carmen Sandiego comes to mind). I would not mind if they end up making more like that for their cartoon shows. Giving their games service to all subscribers at no extra cost seems to be a smart move, as it guarantees a larger install-base out of the gate. However, this does bring into question what that means for their original series. This will be an expensive undertaking, and assuming they don't simply just increase the subscription fees that will mean that Netflix will need to spend their funds more conservatively. Will that mean that they'll cancel smaller series more often to save the budget, or greenlight fewer new projects?

I wouldn't mind seeing Netflix invest in indie studios to create smaller, original titles that are light on the bandwidth and easy to stream, but I hope they aren't going to try streaming big AAA games as I just don't see that working as well. If Google can't get the biggest titles running at an acceptable level, what hope does Netflix have? Do the higher ups at Netflix even understand the inherent differences between films and video games?

I see this as potentially being a lucrative side-service for Netflix, but I hope they don't think they're going to enter as a major platform in the gaming space. It's too crowded already.

This is all before I even mention that I, like many of the people here, despise the idea of streaming becoming the 'future of gaming'. I have no problem with it existing in whatever niche it creates for itself, but it better not try to encroach on my territory.

How do I feel? I struggle to think of anything I care about less than game streaming and this is no different. The concept is stupid, over hyped and over saturated. 

This is a cool little niche nick-nack like thing but I fucking hope to god this won't be the future of video games. Unlike alot of people I actually like to permanently own the video games I play, movies I watch, and music I listen to (this is why I still buy CDs, Vinyl records, and DVDs).

It'd be pretty cool to play some video games through my Netflix subscription, but this better not become the permanent way to play video games.

Really cool and totally unique idea! I hope it bombs miserably!

I think this will be very successful. 

edit: Misread topic. See below.

2 hours ago, Chip said:

Netflix has no word on what the games will be like. Former Electronic Arts and Facebook executive Mike Verdu has been hired for the project.

anything Mike Verdu has touched so far turned into a pile of shit within a matter of less than 2 years, and I don't expect any changes with regards to this in the foreseeable future...

if "worked for EA and facebook" doesn't sound the alarm right away, then I don't know what will...

3 minutes ago, [McD]James said:

I think this will be very successful. 

I agree... as long as you add that the success will be all for Netflix (and other companies as they glom on). They asked themselves, "how do we squeeze every penny from customers while having as much control over our product as possible?" This is the answer.

Consumers could rally against it, and depending how bad conditions get, they might. I doubt it though - people are already numb to the idea of streaming everything all the time. Netflix will kill whatever game they feel like in order to pump the next one and it will probably work every time. This kind of thing has already been happening, see Dead Game News for some terrible stories of games being handed an unnecessary death by the industry. In particular though, this video helped me understand a lot more about what is happening:
 

I have to correct myself. I misread this as being about live-streaming and being a potential Twitch competitor.

I suppose it couldn't be any worse than Stadia. 

It's most likely going to be a gimmick with no other purpose then to say "oh hey! Did you know netflix has games now?" It's going to be terrible just like stadia.

Combine that with that red flags in the form of an ex electronic arts employee and current facebook exec working on the project.

Thankfully, no matter how good internet connections get in the future, it seems that streaming games will most likely die out within the next decade once all the old brass at these corporations finally die out and the people left come up with another gimmick.

Hopefully.

This definitely won't flop and be forgotten and abandoned a few weeks after its launch.

Video gaming is something you may do when you specifically do NOT have internet, for any outage or travel reason. 

Google Stadia sends his regards..

I was gonna weigh in on this topic.. but do I really have any ground to talk about it? I dunno jack shit about modern gaming. I just play Doom a lot.

Ah, fuck it.. Assuming we don't blow ourselves up by the time it becomes more viable, I genuinely think "streamed gaming" is an interesting idea. With that said, any game that doesn't have a way for you to actually own it and play it offline will be doomed in the long-term. People who get into any "streaming only" titles are gonna be sorely disappointed when they disappear forever 2 years later.

I can't imagine this having any impact on others like myself, who hasn't bought a new game since the Wii U and doesn't really care to. It might be fun to play Street Fighter on a tablet for 10 minutes using my Netflix account though. Why not, right?

14 hours ago, Chip said:

How do you feel about this new streaming service?

same unusable shit as stadia, and other such services. stupid physics laws still prevents doing Great Business!

7 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

play Street Fighter on a tablet for 10 minutes using my Netflix account

It would be fun to travel back in time ten years or so and use this sentence in a public setting.

1 hour ago, Kurogachii said:

Google Stadia sends his regards..

 

Google is a notorious moonshot player who doesn't mind failures. Let's see if Netflix actually makes it.

Netflix already has the film browsing interface. I don't see the difficulty in having some "movies" (i.e. the streamed games themselves) be interactive. The little problem is that such a thing would be much easier to implement on computers (if you're using to watching Netflix on your laptop or tablet) than on your living room TV. The TV would require you to own a compatible game controller tethered to your smart TV or Android/AppleTV box. I'm afraid that casual movie watchers won't be prepared with this hardware, they only have a basic remote. I guess that remote is also equipped with 4 arrows and maybe one other button, but that sounds like very simple games.

Let alone the fact that we already have wildly different control schemes all over: keyboard+mouse on PC, gamepad on TV and, most different of all, touchscreens on phones. I wonder how will games adapt to this variety.

23 minutes ago, printz said:

they only have a basic remote.

The playstation 3 also had a basic remote, i know what you mean, there's a big chance that the controller will be just a standard xbox controller with some bluetooth paired to a special box, something like a TV box where you can play your games but also watch netflix.

Or maybe it's just integrated and all you need is an addon that links to your netflix account vía bluetooth.

In conclusion, i predict a standalone TV box with one controller and a netflix remote at about 120 bucks.

Can’t wait for the Bojack Horseman MMO RPG

30 minutes ago, StupidBunny said:

Can’t wait for the Bojack Horseman MMO RPG

Malcom in the Middle: Dewey's Revenge

15 hours ago, [McD]James said:

I have to correct myself. I misread this as being about live-streaming and being a potential Twitch competitor.

That would certainly be a more sensible idea from where I'm sitting. I mean, the failure of Stadia should've been the writing on the wall to tell anyone that streaming games as service is a dumb idea that consumers don't want. But an alternative website to Twitch for livestreaming? That'd probably work, especially for Netflix which is an already established service/brand that'd have a lot more chance at success than an up-and-comer.

5 hours ago, Biodegradable said:

That would certainly be a more sensible idea from where I'm sitting. I mean, the failure of Stadia should've been the writing on the wall to tell anyone that streaming games as service is a dumb idea that consumers don't want. But an alternative website to Twitch for livestreaming? That'd probably work, especially for Netflix which is an already established service/brand that'd have a lot more chance at success than an up-and-comer.

I'd wager that a lot more people have Netflix accounts than Amazon Prime accounts, so if Netflix were to start up their own livestreaming service at no extra cost to current customers, they'd have to be pretty stupid not to create a viable competitor for Twitch pretty much overnight.

This looks terrible for consumers in the long run. Especially coming from Netflix who use low price to kill competition then slowly start showing their real pricing models. 

On 7/28/2021 at 2:57 AM, Doomkid said:

It might be fun to play Street Fighter on a tablet for 10 minutes using my Netflix account though. Why not, right? 

yeah... I bet the latency involved in the entire process will make games like street fighter and any other title that highly favours lower latencies a real banger.... not!

20 hours ago, Skeletonpatch said:

 

I'd wager that a lot more people have Netflix accounts than Amazon Prime accounts, so if Netflix were to start up their own livestreaming service at no extra cost to current customers, they'd have to be pretty stupid not to create a viable competitor for Twitch pretty much overnight.

Funny thing is that Amazon not only does owns Twitch, but also Netflix's servers . So they can choose between pressuring Netflix into not doing that or just being paid by their own "competition".

5 minutes ago, John Wheel said:

So they can choose between pressuring Netflix into not doing that or just being paid by their own "competition".

I wonder if they can be sued on anti-trust grounds to avoid that kind of power...

Great. Going by how quickly Netflix rolls out new content, I look forward to playing Daggerfall on my phone in 2031.