Netflix, the streaming giant with a subscriber base of 247.15 million worldwide, ventured into mobile gaming with high hopes.
However, recent data from market analyst firm Apptopia reveals a surprising trend: less than 1% of Netflix's total subscribers engage with its gaming content daily.
This equates to an average of 2.2 million users playing one or more titles per day as of September 2023, despite the platform's games being downloaded 70.5 million times worldwide.
With a library that has expanded from 24 to 77 games within the past year, the question arises: why is Netflix struggling to draw its vast audience into its gaming venture?
Considering that Netflix is by far the biggest streaming service globally (check out our estimates for subscriber bases below), if anyone was going to make a gaming subscription work, you think it would be them.
| Rank | Streaming Service | Subscribers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Netflix | 260.28 million |
| 2 | Amazon Prime Video | 200 million+ |
| 3 | Disney+ | 150.2 million |
| 4 | Max | 95.1 million |
| 5 | Paramount+ | 63.4 million |
| 6 | Hulu | 48.5 million |
| 7 | Peacock | 31 million |
| 8 | ESPN+ | 26 million |
| 9 | Apple TV+ | 25 million (estimated) |
| 10 | Starz | 15.79 million |
Netflix Gaming: Why isn't it working?
Netflix introduced its gaming service in November 2021, aiming to add value to its subscription model by offering a variety of mobile games.
This move included strategic hires, such as Mike Verdu as VP of game development, and acquisitions like Oxenfree developer Night School Studio.
The company also launched a limited beta for its cloud gaming service in the UK, Canada, and the US, signalling its commitment to becoming a significant player in the mobile gaming industry.
Despite some major titles coming to the service like Grand Theft Auto, Dead Cells, Football Manager and Sonic The Hedgehog, as well as bespoke titles for some of their biggest shows like Stranger Things, Netflix Gaming is not catching on.
We asked Gamers why
We decided to ask gamers and Netflix subscribers why they aren't using the service, and the results were a mixture of mobile gaming malaise and a lack of actual knowledge of the service itself.
We gave users three options when it came to our poll:
- Yes I use it frequently
- Netflix does games?
- Why would I play mobile games when I have a console?
Incredibly, NO ONE that we polled stated that they use the service frequently, with daily gamers admitting that they hadn't heard of the service, and even if they had, they would prefer playing games on console anyway.
Even casual gamers, the market that Netflix is clearly hoping to attract, admitted that they didn't even know that the service even existed, a pretty damning indictment of the marketing that has already gone into the service.
Overall, our poll came out with these staggering figures:
- Yes I use it frequently - 0%
- Netflix does games? - 40%
- Why would I play mobile games when I have a console? -60%
It's not just Netflix that can't make Gaming work
Whilst it's easy to lambast Netflix for not marketing their gaming service well enough to hardcore gamers, nor being able to find the titles that casual gamers actually want to pick up and play, it's not just Netflix that has struggled in the gaming space.
Amazon, another major player in the streaming space, has also struggled with homegrown titles like Crucible, which was essentially a AAA-level multiplayer title that was looking to challenge the likes of Valorant...that it certainly did not. Amazon's Luna streaming game service has also struggled, despite offering an alternative to the now-defunct Google Stadia, which itself is another example of a massive company that offers downloadable films and content not being able to sustain a gaming service.
Why are these companies struggling so much to enter the gaming space? Is it purely because PlayStation, Microsoft and Nintendo have the market cornered? Or are they just not penetrating the market in the right way to genuinely make a difference?
According to the users in our poll on Netflix's side, it's a combination of both not providing the titles that people actually want to play, but perhaps even worse...not actually making people that aware that they even have gaming titles to begin with.
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