Netflix expands into cloud gaming, opens new studio in Southern California • TechCrunch

At TechCrunch Disrupt, Netflix Vice President of Games Mike Verdu Dropped a couple of bits of news about the streaming giant’s entry into gaming. Verdu said that Netflix is ​​”seriously exploring cloud gaming offerings.” The company will also open a new game studio in Southern California.

“It is an added value. We’re not asking you to sign up as a console alternative, Verdo said on stage. “It’s a completely different business model. We hope that over time this will become a very natural way to play games wherever you are.”

Google’s Stadia and Amazon’s Luna both made the same game, trying to get around the video games people could play even if they didn’t have an expensive gaming PC or coveted console. But these services have struggled to achieve mainstream user adoption. Google recently said it will do so Close Stadia in january.

“Although Stadia’s approach to consumer game streaming has been built on a strong technology foundation, it hasn’t gained as much traction with users as we had anticipated, so we made the difficult decision to begin quitting Stadia’s streaming service,” Stadia Vice President and GM Phil Harrison wrote in Blog post.

Verdu believes these products have struggled because of their business models, not because of the technology itself.

“Stadia was a technical success. It was fun playing games on Stadia,” Verdo said. “It definitely had some issues with the business model.”

Stadia and Luna both have dedicated consoles — but Verdu was reticent to say if we can expect a Netflix game console in the future.

He revealed, though, that Netflix is ​​ramping up its game development by opening an in-house studio in Southern California. This is the company’s fifth studio—just last month, Netflix Create a store in Helsinki, Finland with a former general manager of Zynga at the helm. Others include entertainment fighting coach, night school studio and Finland Upcoming Gameseach of which is designed to develop games that cater to different tastes.

The new studio in California will be run by Chacko Sonny, a former “Overwatch” executive producer. At Blizzard Entertainment, “Overwatch” was a huge success, grossing billions of dollars. Sony announced his take off from Blizzard last year following a SEC investigation into sexual harassment and discrimination at the dominant gaming company.

“He could have done anything, but he chose to come here,” Verdo said. “You don’t get people like that coming into your organization to build the next big thing in gaming unless there’s a sense that we’re really involved in it for the long run and in it for the right reasons.”

Since announcing its entry into the gaming world, Netflix has 14 games in development in its own studios and has 35 games in the service now. In total, Verdu said it has 55 “on the fly” games right now. These games include experiences based on original IP like “Stranger Things” as well as licensed IP like “Spongebob Squarepants”. Netflix also develops original games.

“Hopefully over time the balance will be like 50% Netflix IP,” Verdo said.

The company still considers itself in the very early stages of its gaming initiative but hasn’t ruled out expansions beyond mobile devices – although we understand it won’t be heading into console or virtual reality at this point.

Game studio launch news and cloud game plans arrive as does Netflix Announces earnings for the third quarter, which sees the operator beating expectations by adding 2.41 million subscribers, bringing the total to 223.09 million. Netflix expected a net gain of just 1 million subscribers in the third quarter. The company also announced a profit of $7.93 in the third quarter of 2022, while analysts had expected $7.85 billion.

Update, 10/18/22 5:54PM ET to clarify that the 14 titles are “in development” and not “developed”.