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Netflix Games gain traction with installs up 180% year-over-year in 2023, thanks to GTA and others
10.01.2024 - 17:51 / techcrunch.com
Just over two years ago, Netflix announced it would enter a new business: gaming. Amid a mobile gaming market dominated by free-to-play and ad-supported business models, Netflix’s plan was to make its games free without ads or in-app purchases. The gambit may now be starting to pay off. In 2023, Netflix Games downloads increased by over 180% year-over-year, according to estimates from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. In total, the games have been downloaded 81.2 million times worldwide across the App Store and Google Play in 2023, with the fourth quarter accounting for around 53% of those downloads.
That’s up from 36% of Netflix’s 2022 game downloads being driven by fourth-quarter installs, the data indicates. In 2022, Netflix games were downloaded 28.7 million times, and in 2021, 5.2 million times, Sensor Tower estimates.
Initially a small effort that saw Netflix building a catalog with a variety of casual games and those tied to Netflix’s hit shows, like Stranger Things, the company soon began acquiring game studios, including “Oxenfree” developer Night School Studio in 2021, followed the next year by cozy games developer Spry Fox, Finland’s Next Games (publisher of a “Stranger Things” title), and Texas-based Boss Fight Entertainment, founded in by former Zynga Dallas and Ensemble Studios employees.
The goal was to quickly develop a portfolio of games that appealed to mobile gamers’ varying tastes and genre preferences.
With the acquisitions, Netflix also established studios around the world, in addition to its own internal studios, including a Helsinki location led by a former Zynga GM and one in Southern California led by Chacko Sonny, the former executive producer on “Overwatch” from Blizzard Entertainment.
As the company now looks to cloud gaming as its next frontier, it continues to gain traction on the mobile front, as well. Despite having launched mid-way through last year, Netflix’s latest addition, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, has already become the streamer’s most-downloaded game of all time. It also got the most downloads in a single month across the entire gaming portfolio, says mobile app intelligence firm Appfigures. In addition, GTA: Vice City is Netflix’s 6th most downloaded 2023 game, and GTA III was its 11th most downloaded game of the year, Sensor Tower data indicates.
The GTA games were an instant success, with all three collectively racking up over 6.4 million downloads in less than a week after arriving on Netflix. Combined, the trio of GTA games made up around 17% of Netflix’s 2023 gaming downloads, proving to be a hit with mobile audiences — and potentially a reason to maintain a Netflix subscription for the free access. Month-over-month downloads tripled for Netflix’s
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