Night School Studio
CompanyUnited States · Founded 2014
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.
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.
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.
