Netflix might add in-app purchases and ads to its games no one plays

stormesp@lemm.ee to Gaming@lemmy.ml – 232 points –
Netflix might add in-app purchases and ads to its games no one plays
vg247.com
63

Oh wow, I had no interest at all in trying these previously. Reducing the quality of the games by adding ads and in app purchases is exactly the thing that will push me to give it a try.

I've never even heard of netflix having games on their platform.

GTA 3, GTA Vice City, GTA San Andreas, Into The Breach, Dead Cells, Kentucky Route Zero, Oxenfree, Bloons TD 6, World of Goo, ...

It's a pretty decent selection

Eh, Poinpy is actually a lot of fun.

I take it that the word you wrote, is in fact a game on Netflix, and not just some word you made up?

Indeed. It's a good little mobile game.

Of course.

I mean the CEO probably noticed they can only but two yachts this year after firing 20% of the workforce, so they need to increase their bonuses somehow.

After the latest Dave Chappelle, I made Netflix walk the plank.

That's a shame, just before they were gonna release the Dave Chapelle's Transphobia Simulator

Netflix Presents : Dog Whistle 3: Can't Be Bigoted If It's Dave

Someone else in my household pays for it so I have it for now... but I haven't touched it in months.

I didn't know Netflix has games...because I canceled a long time ago when they went to shit and raised prices.

The only benefit to Netflix games is that these games have no ads or IAP.

I mean some are exclusive if you wanted them on the phone.

wasn't lack of microtransactions and ads the whole point of these?

Yes, just what I wanted.

I don't even want interactive titles, why did Netflix clutter the interface with games? I just want to how some noise in the background, so I don't have to listen to my thoughts.

Netflix has games? Are they real games or trivia games?

theyโ€™ve got some decent ones on there. I just started playing Shredderโ€™s Revenge and am having a lot of fun. Into The Breach is fantastic. They also have GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas, not that those are exactly new games.

Depending what youโ€™re in to, some mobile versions of good games like Oxenfree and Spiritfarer and Reigns.

Why do these services add stuff nobody asks for?

There's a lot of reward for experimenting with what you think your customers want if you're correct. Mobile games probably aren't the right avenue for them to go down, but things like Cyberpunk, The Witcher, and Arcane have proven extremely lucrative for not just Netflix but in generating interest in the properties they're attached to, so it would stand to reason that having a gaming arm would mean they could attain that success and not have to share it with a business partner. Again, I don't think mobile games will accomplish this, but I get the line of reasoning.

Mobile games makes no sense for Netflix. They might as well sell donuts.

The only gaming service that would make sense for Netflix is game streaming. Like Luna or Xbox Cloud gaming.

I'd imagine it would make sense for them to make a publisher or large development studio to make the types of games that their shows have benefited from, like an inverse Warner Bros. WB has always been allergic to making any video game that isn't based off of DC or one of their big movies, but imagine if they did that in reverse and made a game with a movie in mind that could be made out of the same premise? That's the crossover that's worked so well for Netflix shows (and The Last of Us and Mario).

Steve Jobs is a great example. Before the 90s, most lay-people didn't know what computers could even do, let alone what design would lead to the most effective user experience. Jobs was able to have a vision for what the platform needed to be before any of his target demographic was capable of asking for it.

But Jobs is in the 1% here, the other 99% are people trying to make it seem like they do work. As long as they can put it on their yearly review and get a raise, they don't care if it gets removed and replaced with someone else' shitty idea in 6mo.

Netflix has games?

On mobile, yes. You can even play GTA 3, VC and SA

they can be easily patched to bypass Netflix account requirements btw, you only miss out on cloud saves

Really? How? I've been wanting to play World of Goo again but the only version available is the netflix one

Link doesn't work in Australia I'm afraid - lots of corporations have a big thing for giving us the shitty end of the stick.

wait what?
the original port isn't supposed to be region locked?
but also it doesn't work on android 14 anymore, Play Store gives me an error saying it's not compatible with the device.

Far as I can tell, the original port's apk isn't region locked, so much as the play store page is. Either that, or people who didn't buy it before the netflix port went up can no longer view the page.

Lol at that title. I just saw some post talking about how "Netflix games was my most used service". Like, that can't be true, either that or you don't really play games lol.

It was a sponsored post on Android authority. That website really went down hill from a decade ago

I do play Into the Breach a lot though, both on steam and Android (Netflix), so maybe I'm one of them.

I recently canceled my Netflix subscription just because I use Youtube and Paramount about 150% more often, and then finding out they had ... games lol I don't believe you

I'm not playing Netflix games unless they bring back the good ol' cable TV games from the late 90s to dick around with your remote on the TV for 10 minutes.

Netflix continuing to piss and shit and cum its pants after the one quarter where they had -1% subscriber growth, and the company lost 75% of its value. Investors are such smart cookies.

Well, whatever...

EDIT: Sorry, it's just frustration.

This abusive business model is the dominant strategy.

If we allow this to continue, there will be nothing else.

Only legislation will fix this.

Unsubscribing from Netflix fixes this.

As if it's just Netflix.

The point stands. Vote with your wallet.

Hasn't worked yet.

A victory isn't the totality of Netflix as a company sinking in the ground. It's every step along the way, including directing your money toward those that respect you as a customer. Pretty much unanimously the best game of last year went to a game that's sold DRM-free, with no DLC, with the ability to play mulitplayer without some stupid live service strings attached, and it sold about 10M copies. Rewarding those games is the other side of the coin of voting with your wallet.

Again, not a Netflix problem. This is becoming the entire industry. More big names are using it than avoiding it. There is almost no cost to adding this greedy bullshit.

We're not going to shop our way out of this.

Don't play big games using it then. That's how you shop your way out of it. If you think every game is full of bad monetization practices, you're not looking very hard for your video games. There's an asterisk there on the addiction that a lot of them prey on, but if you're sick of playing a game where they keep asking you for money instead of letting you enjoy the game, play a different game. There are too many great games that don't bother with that nonsense.

'Ignore the systemic problem and there is no systemic problem' is never sound advice.

No kidding there's always going to be some games that don't commit this abuse - but anything with marketing and payroll will be tempted, and damn near all of them will go for it, because the downsides are fucking slim. The market brought us here. The market will not magically get us out of here.

If the only games you acknowledge are the big games committing the offense, that's why the market is taking us there. You're part of the market. Reward the other games.

Yeah sure, it's my fault for describing a problem, that's what really causes the problem. Not a multi-billion industry where an ever-shrinking sliver avoids this psychological manipulation to attach a siphon to people's wallets.

Pointing a finger at me, personally, will do less than nothing to fight this trend. Do you want to address that objective reality? Or do you want to project more accusations onto the person describing it?

The fact that you call it ever-shrinking when there is too much to play that doesn't fit into that bucket is exactly what I was talking about. Plus you must have missed the bottom falling out of live service games this past year, perhaps due to a lack of consumer trust in the product lasting long enough to justify their time or money. Sega just spent $70M on a game that they decided was better to never even launch. Sony shrunk their live service portfolio forecast from a dozen down to half of that. These are the microtransaction-driven games.

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Its easy as fuck to unsubscribe from netflix. I'm completely guilt free by not paying them money

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