Netflix’s attempts to break into the world of gaming have been as odd as they’ve been persistent. We’re now four years into the streamer attempting to carve out an identity for itself as a gaming brand, efforts that started by snapping up well-loved indie games for slick new releases, and then got even more expensive/expansive as the company went on a shopping spree for mobile game studios in 2021 and 2022. Now, though, it looks like Netflix may be pivoting away from some of those aspirations, with THR announcing that Boss Fight Entertainment, the studio behind high-profile and heavily promoted mobile game Squid Game: Unleashed, has now been shuttered.
This doesn’t mean Netflix is dipping out on gaming as a whole, mind you: The streamer has a whole new slate of party games it’s ready to toss at subscribers in its apparently boundless effort to make Netflix Gaming a thing. But the closing of this specific studio—which Netflix bought in 2022, and which actually produced a pretty massive hit for the company with Unleashed—does suggest a pivot in how Netflix is going forward with this odd, slightly quixotic project. (It also follows in the wake of Netflix shutting down its big-budget internal gaming studio, known only as “Team Blue,” late last year.)
Per THR‘s analysis, the moves come shortly after Netflix hired a new head of games last year, and are apparently part of a push to move the company away from mobile gaming, and toward games that can be played on TVs. (Albeit while still incorporating phones: They’re essentially adopting the Jackbox control scheme, where players use their mobile devices to control TV-based games; Netflix is apparently rolling out party game versions of Boggle and Pictionary in the near future to demonstrate the shift.) The upshot is that we might be seeing way fewer projects that try to incorporate Netflix’s own brands into them, and more that try to make the platform a destination for families that want a way to play existing party and kids games on their phones together. Netflix! They have games! They won’t stop telling you about it!
