Night School Studio
CompanyUnited States · Founded 2014
Night School Studio is an independent game developer known for player-driven narratives that combine wonder, danger, and humor. In October 2021 it was announced Night School Studio had join Netflix as the first game studio acquired by the streaming platform.
Connections
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About the company
- Founded
- 2014
- Country
- United States
Company data from IGDB.com
Documents about Night School Studio
Netflix to Shut Down Two More Game Studios
Netflix is further scaling back its internal video game development operations by closing two studios: the Los Angeles-based Night School and the Helsinki-based Moonloot.
- Netflix is shutting down two internal game studios: Los Angeles-based Night School, acquired in 2021, and Helsinki-based Moonloot, founded in 2022.
- The closures are accompanied by additional job cuts within Netflix’s internal games team, though the company has declined to disclose the specific number of employees affected.
- Netflix is pivoting its gaming strategy to prioritize kids' content, party games, story-driven titles, and mainstream-appeal games like its recently released FIFA title.
Interview: Netflix Wants to Become the ‘Place to Play a Story’
Netflix is strategically positioning itself as a premier destination for narrative-driven gaming by leveraging its massive global audience of 700 million subscribers.
- Netflix aims to become a primary platform for interactive storytelling, specifically targeting its existing 700 million viewers who consume films and series, rather than traditional gamers.
- Netflix's new narrative game, "Unhinged," is a horror thriller starring Sadie Sink, Zoë Kravitz, and Troy Baker, designed to be an approachable, short experience (20-60 minutes) for a broad audience.
- The game utilizes the mobile phone as both a controller and an integral part of the narrative experience, evolving the 'found phone' genre previously explored in titles like the Mr. Robot game.
Is Netflix the future of video game story-telling?
Netflix is actively expanding its footprint in the video game industry by leveraging its massive subscriber base of approximately 700 million users.
- Netflix is leveraging its 700 million subscriber base to integrate interactive narrative experiences into its existing streaming ecosystem, targeting non-traditional gamers rather than competing with console manufacturers.
- The company categorizes its gaming strategy into four distinct verticals: kids, party and puzzle, mainstream, and narrative.
- Netflix’s internal Night School Studio launched 'Unhinged,' a 30-minute horror title that uses smartphones as controllers to test the viability of mobile-first, interactive storytelling.
WeChat Mini-Games insights and the Love & Deepspace Valko controversy | Week in Mobile Games podcast
The Chinese mobile gaming landscape is undergoing a rapid transformation, characterized by the explosive growth of WeChat Mini-Games.
- WeChat Mini-Games are evolving into global franchises, with titles like 'Nobody's Adventure Chop-Chop' reaching 35 million monthly active users and $10 million in daily global revenue, while 'Legend of Mushroom' has generated $270 million globally.
- Infold Games canceled the introduction of a sixth love interest for the game 'Love and Deepspace' following fan backlash over the character's perceived ties to an 'evil corporation' and the use of the number 731, which is associated with a sensitive historical war crime unit in China.
- The shift toward a discless console future is accelerating, with industry analysts predicting that the next generation of hardware, such as the potential PlayStation 6, will likely be fully digital to reduce manufacturing costs and align with current digital-first sales trends.
Amazon and Netflix Venture Further into Games: Battle Royale for the Streaming Giants
The convergence of streaming media and interactive entertainment is accelerating as major technology firms leverage established intellectual property to capture consumer attention.
- Amazon’s New World MMO reached over 700,000 concurrent players, marking a significant recovery after the failure of Crucible, which peaked at only 25,000 players.
- Netflix is pivoting from a video distributor to a provider of persistent online worlds by acquiring Night School Studio to focus on player-driven narratives based on its existing intellectual property.
- The gaming industry is facing increased regulatory and legal pressure, evidenced by Activision Blizzard’s $18 million workplace culture settlement and Roblox’s $200 million settlement with music publishers.
The Art of Afterparty: The Devil's in the Details
Afterparty represents a significant evolution in narrative-driven game design, transitioning from two-dimensional aesthetics to a fully realized 3D environment while preserving the signature branching dialogue mechanics of Night School Studio.
- To bridge the gap between concept art and in-game assets, Night School Studio developed a 'rotoscoping' pipeline where 3D geometry is modeled precisely around perspective-corrected concept art, which is then disassembled and textured for Unity.
- The game's visual identity was built on three pillars: 'comedic' dialogue and animation, an 'alive' world inspired by the nightlife of Shibuya, and 'heart' derived from character-driven storytelling.
- The 'liquid courage' mechanic allows players to influence dialogue branches by choosing specific drinks, which trigger a third, unique dialogue option during conversations.
Glitch as the Representation of the Uncanny in Oxenfree
Agata Waszkiewicz's article examines how the audiovisual glitch functions as a representation of the uncanny in Oxenfree (2016), a narrative-driven independent game by Night School Studio that blends Gothic mystery with coming-of-age storytelling.
- Waszkiewicz argues that the Gothic finds a natural home in video games because players are both active participants and passive recipients of a predetermined story, and that glitch is a key device for expressing the uncanny in Oxenfree (2016), developed by Night School Studio.
- In Oxenfree, glitches act as a visual marker of the rift between the living and the spectral world, distorting the image to disorient players and mirror the characters' unease.
- The article distinguishes spontaneous glitches (code errors) from deliberately designed 'glitch-alike' effects, and classifies Oxenfree's glitches as the latter.
