After Lot of buzz around Netflix's gaming initiative, They made an official announcement just before the holiday season last year. Netflix Games is now available and I gave it a try.

Let the Games Begin: A New Way to Experience Entertainment on Mobile

We’re excited to launch Netflix games on mobile to the world. Starting today, members everywhere can play five mobile games: Stranger Things: 1984, Stranger Things 3: The Game, Shooting Hoops, Card Blast, and Teeter Up.

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Netflix Games seems like the sensible next step for an entertainment company trying to diversify into other entertainment areas. But does it fit well into the product that Netflix currently is? Why would the audience play these games? Is there any future for this initiative?

How does it work?

1. Netflix app has a games section which is currently placed between your normal scroll view.

2. Clicking on the game takes you to a landing page for the game inside the Netflix app itself.

3. You're then redirected to the store page of that game. The store page is on your respective app store and the game is published under the Netflix brand.

4. First thing you see when starting the game is a Netflix screen where you need to log in and select your profile. It informs you that the game progress is saved to your Netflix profile.

5. Game starts once you've logged in.

The games here are supposed to be free, and also don't contain any in app purchases, or ads. However, you do need a Netflix subscription to play these games as they won't allow you to enter without a Netflix login.

Maybe it makes sense?

Netflix is already a big player in the home streaming entertainment space. In the recent years, a lot of competitors have emerged that are trying to emulate Netflix, and also succeeding. The competition for this attention economy is very saturated and it's a challenge to make the most from the same audience.

This competition has forced Netflix to look around in other avenues for engagement. Gaming (even if you consider only mobile gaming) market is a huge pie that seems attractive for this diversification. Since this pie is probably bigger than the entire video streaming business, Netflix, with its funds can hope to acquire new users, or atleast give extra value to their existing users. 'Hope' being a key word there.

The current Netflix use case would be that the users visit it when they're willing to spend longer time to watch something. For the times when there's short breaks in the day, the users wouldn't be accessing Netflix at all. With games, they can now get users to engage in their ecosystem even during their smaller breaks in the day.

Netflix has assumed that micro transactions, and advertisements constitute a bad user experience, and they're upselling their games with the promise of not including those in them. This may attract some users to give these games a try and play them for the 'premium (and not freemium) game experience that it promises as an added incentive to the already existing subscription.

Or maybe it doesn't make any sense?

Expected user behavior for Netflix is that of a space where users come for non-interactive forms of entertainment. They do have some choose-your-own-adventure kind interactive shows, but those are still way different from what games offer as a medium.

Users who have a behavior of playing games during their daily short breaks would already have sorted their set of games, and ways to access them. If there's an expectation that these users would engage with Netflix's games, there needs to be a very strong reason to switch to Netflix ones.

With this approach, Netflix is just adding another app store inside their main app. As the priority of the main app will be towards their streaming content, games could never get prominence for visibility. In addition to this, the apps redirect to the OS's app store, so there's this additional friction before the user can actually try this game out. Looking at this, it can be expected that the conversion for these games is very low.

While it can be argued that ads are a bad user experience (Although, I am of the opinion that ad-based games can have good UX), the removal of in-app purchases from these games seems like a 'leaving money on the table' approach. As you need an active subscription, the audience for these games will be the ones who can afford to spend money for entertainment. This audience can be the ones that can convert to paying players because of the affordability. Not giving an option to in-app purchases reduces the revenue potential here.

Is there any future?

With the existing competition in the video streaming space, games would still be an avenue that Netflix would like to crack.

Giving incentives to developers to make high quality games which are Netflix exclusive could be something that they would try in order to lure more audience.

The Netflix games section is currently part of the main app, but if there's traction, they can move to a Netflix games app which is standalone.

Or there could also be an approach like the 'try and buy' system of Google Play Store where you can try a game within the app, and then you can be taken to the app store if you want to download the full version.Getting more users to engage with their games would require reduction of the current friction points. The main one being that of going outside the app and then deciding to install the game.

For all its claims of no ads, in its current state, Netflix games is nothing more than a banner advertisement for some games which opens the app store and asks you to download a separate app.

It is possible that Netflix would put a bit more focus on this in the near future. However, at the end of the day this could still be the side hustle that may or may not see a dedicated approach from their product leadership to turn it into a success. Only time will tell.

TL;DR

1. Netflix has started exploring a new avenue for games using their Netflix Games initiative.

2. Games are currently accessible from the main app, which then redirects you to the app store. Once installed, they require your Netflix login in order to play.

3. Diversifying into gaming is a good idea now that Netflix has lot of competition in the premium video streaming space.

4. Games give extra value to their users and Netflix can hope to increase the user engagement with their ecosystem.

5. Ad-free, and micro-transaction-less experience on these games can attract users because of this premium-like games that are an added advantage to their existing Netflix subscription.

6. Netflix is just adding another app store inside their main app, and hoping that people try the games out. Doesn't look very promising currently.

7. The micro transaction free approach is leaving out possible revenue which can be acquired from an audience that is already wealthy enough to afford a Netflix subscription in the first place.

8. Netflix would need to make the gaming experience lot better if they want to turn it into a success. Currently it looks like it wouldn't get as much product focus as their main priority will still be the video streaming business.