mini TWIG (#289) Eric Kress Solves ALL Netflix Games problems with a Must-See Rant!

speaking of cynicism are we going to do Netflix again oh my God we we're we're trying to get out of it but suur just just dropped a Netflix article and then Netflix came out with two PR pieces last week one was by the co-ceo Greg Peters and then the other one was by their VP of external games lean lombe if I pronounce that correctly she's Og man she's been doing this [ __ ] a long time I'll give her that I'll give her credit I would I would assume but both of them are awesome my point was mainly that the way I understood it I could be wrong is the the CEO article was of course more about Netflix as a whole it was The Verge article and he was talking about the Netflix future he talked about AI of course what ELC would talk about and all these other elements but one of them was games and in games you know I'm quoting him he said ultimately to give fans the most compelling immersive experiences eventually will go to something that looks like AAA model I will definitely not rule that out so the CEO is saying

we're going to AAA I want people to play on TV essentially what was that Google product that failed stadia stadia yeah like I was envisioning that he's talking about stadia but with Netflix eyepiece got it great we're going to play Rebel Moon triaa and enjoy that was in the works though that's not a joke that was in the works it was that's actually still in the works it's a it's a phenomenal phenomenal show damn it they're out of their minds they're out of their minds all of them so that was the article and he gave a glimpse of what the future would look like and it's inspiring it's new it's something that other people are not doing but then when Leon was given her interview I don't call these interviews they they wrote you know questions and then they the pr wrote answers but on Pocket Gamer she was stating that they're really happy with the shape of the portfolio has taken and that the games are long-term for Netflix well well and then she had this this fallacy that that they keep on saying is that our audience doesn't have to deal with ads or microtransactions to

disrupt the gameplay experience and the developers can work with us without worrying about monetization and can focus on the best player experience possible so you know these these same policies but we know what has been happening they've been buying Dead games and basically removing microtransactions from them and removing ads and these games are not really that much downloaded except that if they pay a lot of money for old GTA games and then those are downloaded etc etc and after spending about $3 billion they've learned two key lessons one is games with IP are more popular surprise and creating games based on members favorite series and films is one of the biggest opportunities that Netflix has so using their own IPS is actually a good idea that's also a great learning only took them two years but then they created shitty experiences on Roblox with those set IPS that doesn't make sense well the experiences were not good like a lot I've played several of these games and they were ported from PC games and it was they just weren't great user experience

nevertheless suer put it in his article this strategy is called spaghetti strategy so you're throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks and at the moment doesn't seem that really many things stick except their original IPS that I think they've gotten over 20 million [ __ ] done that which is so crazy like Ethan's right where is my Pon Match 3 where the [ __ ] is my Emily and Paris game it's so obvious my takeaway I think Jen is going to disagree with this but my takeaway from reading these two articles one wasit behind pay wall is that I feel like the CEO and head of external games who I feel like is now the spokesperson for Netflix games are telling a little bit of a different story I understand that the CEO might be looking five years ahead and she's talking about yesterday today and tomorrow neither of them talk about the Ry for the games business but sufor has a great article on mobile Dev memo and he kind of goes into this where he shows the graphs of churn and the effect of games and whether they had any effect

and what is the big reason and essentially he's making a case that no there's there's none of that happening but to end this my own segment is I think that I know that Netflix games coms has been looking to get in touch with us and correct some of the facts not some of the facts but some of the statements we've made and we welcome we do corrections at the of every show we would love to have them on a podcast we just operate with the information we're given I'll tell them specifically if you guys don't say anything people are going to speculate right so now you're finally coming out and actually doing PR and trying to like tell the story without a story it's going to be rumors and speculation fundamentally I I guess I didn't understand why you said they were saying different things because you know there is AAA games in development because she's only over half the business so Netflix is organized with an internal team and an external team and she heads up the external team so she works with people who uh are external basically doing licensing

agreements kind of exactly like what Apple arcade is and so I don't think she is over the AAA business and and so in her view what she is doing for what her purview is it is more of the hey we are you know we've noticed IP is important we've noticed you know we want to do those things and I think that makes sense and I think you know the CEO is talking about longterm Vision that includes triaa that includes what Lanna is doing and so I didn't think they were necessarily saying different things I think she was speaking to a little bit more to her her view and I think we're looking for a strategy and neither one of them is really giving that to us yet and I think again I think they don't know what their strategy is because you're right I think their strategy has been to throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks and I think they are starting to find some of these things now I I think we think that the not no monetization no ads model isn't actually

helping I think we're probably right on that because to Phil's Point sometimes as a player you need to have some skin in the game to want to stay with these these games I I do think that the challenge is just like with Amazon which I we might not get to today but we might talk about next week is just because an IP is on Netflix doesn't mean that that team has the rights so with Bridgerton with Emily and Paris maybe not that one they might not have the rights to do some of these IPS or the IP holder might be you know a challenging IP holder you know we all know Harry Potter right we all know that JK rling is a [ __ ] pain in the ass to work with and so I am just speculating that they might not have rights they might have difficult IP holders they might not have prioritized it because it's a female audience and they have not thought that that was open-minded as I I agree with you I you know the first thing when I've pitched them is like Bridgerton give me Bridgerton holy [ __ ] like what I'll I'll make any you want with that IP anyway

that that's just my quick take yeah okay I want to just kind of update my my my thinking on this is that I I think I might have been completely wrong about my assessment about here about what's going on in Netflix gaming I'll have to capitulate right my assessment was basically that licensing their best content to Roblox is a sign that of an impatient org and that the gaming and and impatient with the gaming contribution and that potentially Des sign that Netflix is going to stop the gaming strategy right I think I'm wrong about that what I was right about was that there's dissension in the ranks right it's more of a sign that Netflix was perhaps unhappy with the current leadership at games or that the current leadership was unhappy with Netflix corporate which is I think what likely is probably the problem right but from this PR you have to kind of read between the nonsense and [ __ ] right is that the Netflix is in it for the long term right what is critical is the next hiring for the gaming group exact right if they hire an experienced game maker or experienced publishing person mobile otherwise what ever I think that bodess

well for the long-term potential of this particular area of business if they hire a mother fing Tech bro you know with no gaming series whatsoever and I go on LinkedIn and we have like three Mutual connections this is [ __ ] over this is [ __ ] over this is going to be a [ __ ] goddamn money pit in which they are G to throw billions at this [ __ ] and ultimately fail [ __ ] miserably right no more Tech Bros no more Tech Bros we don't need these guys okay doing this [ __ ] if it's a McKenzie guy that has been doing nothing but [ __ ] for [ __ ] 20 years it's [ __ ] over all right so this is my warning to Netflix and you can correct that okay don't do that do not do that please I'm begging you all right that's it what if it's Bernard Kim like we always suggest it whenever there's a there's somebody we just like just bring on Bernard Kim no I but Bernard makes sense dude the guy the guy's the face man right he'd be good he's far better than being at match you

know what the [ __ ] is he doing at match you know like it's crazy right yeah Bernard Kim is perfect for this role dude well there you have it we've we've solved it solved it all problems Netflix