Is Netflix making an aggressive move in the video game industry? There has certainly been talk of the company’s latest earnings calls to support all the smoke that has grown in Hollywood.
Asked directly by Fidelity Management & Research moderator Nidhi Gupta, founder and co-CEO Reed Hastings said that “in a way, we’re kind of in the game now with Bandersnatch and we have some very basic interactive stuff.”
But Greg Peters, COO and Chief Product Officer, was the one who added more smoke to the fire when he talked, smiling, about the billion-dollar video game business.
“We are working to create these amazing, deep universes and compelling characters, and people come to love these universes and want to dive deeper and get to know the characters better. We try to figure out all the ways we can increase those connection points and deepen that fandom and certainly games are a really interesting component of that. Whether it’s a gamification of linear stories that we do as interactive with Bandersnatch and we continue and we’ve released games themselves as part of our licensing and marketing effort and we’re happy with what we’ve seen. There is no doubt that games will be an important form of entertainment and an important way to deepen the fan experience, so we will continue, “he said.
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Chief Financial Officer Spencer Neumann added that the company was “involved” in the games. “We are a business that continues to learn and so far the learning has been good, so we are happy with the way it is playing and how to hope that we will continue to learn,” he said.
Netflix got involved in video games with the release of games around shows like Stranger Things, so it’s entirely possible to add to that in the future, rather than focus with Microsoft and Sony on the Xbox or Play Station.
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But Hastings suggested the company doesn’t expect to have a great “second act” the way Amazon did it by moving to web services and physical shopping, but expects to continue to launch in licensing and marketing. “We want to expand,” he said. “We have a lot to do in terms of different types of entertainment.”
“I don’t think there will be a second act, in the sense of AWS and Amazon Shopping, I bet we will end up with a profit fund, hopefully gigantic, very defensible and then we will continue to improve the service for our members, by expanding the category. I would not look for any large secondary reserve of profits. ”