Netflix are allegedly looking to expand their number of users with a deal to licence a GTA title.
Netflix are reportedly hoping to licence a ‘Grand Theft Auto’ title in a move into “higher-end” gaming.
The media streaming company began its gaming journey in November 2021 when it release five iOS and Android titles that could be played with a Netflix subscription.
Nearly two years later, the number games the company offers has increased to 70, with a few particularly notable titles, including The Walking Dead mobile developer Next Games, Triple Town and Cozy Grove developer Spry Fox, and Oxenfree creator Night School Studio.
Now, a recent report from the Wall Street Journal says that the media conglomerate have set their sights on a game from the GTA series to try to draw more customers to the platform. Netflix is allegedly talking to the franchise’s developer, Rockstar Games, hoping to secure a licencing deal, though the publication has offered no further information as to which specific GTA title the media company are looking for.
According to the US publication, Netflix’s priority of retaining and obtaining new customers can be done through having as many big gaming titles as possible on offer, and so the company would have one of the first platforms to offer movies, TV shows, and games.
The publication has said that that Netflix’s gaming section is gaining traction, citing analytics from the app tracker Apptopia. According to the app, Netflix game downloads have risen from 30.4 million to 70.5 million in the last year.
Whilst this seems like good news for the company, the figures also revealed that less than 1 per cent of the 238 million Netflix subscribers are playing games on the platform daily, with less than half of those users pressing the ‘Get Game’ button on the Netflix app.
In order to make the experience as inviting and seamless as possible, Netflix is trialling game streaming for a “small number” of subscribers in the UK and Canada with two games – Night School Studio’s Oxenfree and “gem-mining arcade game” Molehew’s Mining Adventure, both of which can be streamed to a TV.
Despite the testing, the Wall Street Journal has also said that Netflix is desperate not to fall into the same trap that Google did with Stadia, which also offered game streaming.
According to the publication, internal meetings at the company have seen some pushback to the streaming idea, asking with Netflix “is looking to go deeper into a market where such a titan has failed.” Google Stadia was introduced in 2019 to much fanfare, but the product and service was killed off this year after the platform struggled to gain users.
Netflix reportedly looking to licence GTA title to attract new customers
