Netflix has an answer with how to deal with weird Aunt Marsha on Thanksgiving night: Boggle!
Four years after the streaming giant first tried its hand at video games, the company is releasing a new twist. Netflix unveiled on Thursday a handful of popular games you already know how to play and can play with family — Pictionary, Boggle, Tetris and others — that represent its strategy going forward.
People won’t have to download an app for each game, unlike previous games from Netflix. The games are available directly through the Netflix app and playable on your television. A smartphone will act as a controller, allowing even Aunt Marsha to get involved without much setup.
Alain Tascan, who heads Netflix’s game division, said the calculation was simple: Rather than compete with a ton of other game developers angling for mobile users, why not target the millions of users Netflix already has?
“The number of companies that have access to hundreds of millions of people — in our case, more than 700 million — on the main entertainment screen at home, are less numerous, and we are one of the leaders,” he said.
The initiative plays into Netflix’s top goal: keeping subscribers on the service longer. And the phone’s interactive capabilities will allow its subscribers to engage more easily with live television events, like the “Star Search” talent competition launching next year that will include audience participation.
Netflix isn’t the only streamer interested in bringing games to its streaming app. In its earnings call Thursday morning, Disney’s chief executive, Robert A. Iger, said that there was an opportunity to integrate “gamelike features into Disney+.” The company purchased an equity state in Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite, last year. And Amazon sent an email to Prime subscribers reminding them of their access to Luna, a gaming service that allows them to play games like Angry Birds and Taboo “on devices you already own.”
Mr. Tascan, 58, joined Netflix in August 2024 from Epic Games. He arrived with the objective of streamlining the division and moving it away from mobile games, an endeavor that never reached the heights of the company’s ambitions.
“There were some results, but not enough,” Mr. Tascan said of the more than 100 mobile games Netflix launched over the past four years. Of them, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was the most successful, with nearly 40 million downloads. In second place was Squid Game: Unleashed, which came out in December 2024, ahead of the show’s second season. “When we look really at the full ecosystem, we see that most of our viewing is based on TV,” he said.”
Netflix will continue to make some of those games. At a press event on Wednesday, Mr. Tascan announced two new ones: WWE 2K25: Netflix Edition; and Red Dead Redemption from Rockstar Games, the same company that made Grand Theft Auto.
Since his arrival, Mr. Tascan shut down one internal studio, Team Blue, and one external studio, Boss Fight, which created Squid Game: Unleashed. Three studios remain: Night School, which laid off some employees in February; Next Game, based in Helsinki; and Spry Fox, which is working on a long-gestating mobile game, “Spirit Crossing,” that Netflix described “as a massively cooperative life Sim designed to encourage friendship and make the world feel a little less lonely.”
The company’s interactive programming will include Best Guess Live, its version of the wildly popular HQ Trivia. Later this year, players will get a chance each weeknight to engage in a live trivia game. Hosted by Howie Mandel and Hunter March, the game will pay up to $15,000 each night.
“It’s so good to see so many people who aren’t bright in person,” quipped Mr. Mandel, after a demonstration of the game concluded.
According to Geoff Keighley, creator of The Game Awards, which names the best games of the year, game developers are energized by the strategy. Netflix’s shows and movies have long served as a successful marketing platform for video games. Millions of people downloaded the Witcher game, years after it debuted, after the success of the Henry Cavill-starring series on Netflix. Now those developers can access the Netflix audience directly.
“It’s gamifying Netflix,” Mr. Keighley said. “Sure, it’s putting gaming content on service now. But there’s an opportunity to take a lot of the things that people know from gaming devices — whether that’s achievements or interactivity, social and community — and bring it onto the platform.”
Mr. Tascan said working with filmmakers on new games is also a big opportunity. Netflix has enlisted Rian Johnson, the director of “Knives Out,” for a Mafia-style game called Dead Man’s Party: A Knives Out Game. In the game, everyone is a suspect after a murder, and a detective, Benoit Blanc, is on hand to solve the case. That game will debut soon; the third film is set to stream on Netflix on Dec. 12.
“If we are able to bring this more innovative, more approachable, frictionless experience, we will start having new partners,” Mr. Tascan said.
Nicole Sperling covers Hollywood and the streaming industry. She has been a reporter for more than two decades.
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