Netflix: The New Blockbuster

Stephen Totilo on his excellent Game File newsletter (paywalled):

I might have the games-movies-TV comparison on my mind because of Arranger’s Netflix connection.

The new game is available on Switch and PlayStation for a price, but is also offered on mobile at no added cost to anyone with a Netflix subscription.

It’s one of many excellent games offered via Netflix on mobile (see also: Kentucky Route Zero, Oxenfree, Poinpy, The Case of the Golden Idol, Storyteller, Immortality, Into the Breach and more).

But it’s not quite the kind of game that Netflix execs were hyping to investors last week as they made clear they’re still bullish on being a big player in gaming. They kept focusing on games that spin off of Netflix shows, and salivated over how a tie-in game can let Netflix “take a show and give the super fan a place to be in between seasons.” That’s the kind of synergy talk that investors like. It makes sense the way it makes sense to extend a brand by selling official t-shirts and coffee mugs. It might even result in some delightful games tied to TV shows.

It’s just not what Arranger is.

Arranger is something only possible in games that only needs to be a game and have nothing to do with anything else.

My wife and I resubscribed to Netflix the night before the above newsletter went out (July 26, 2024 — I’m a bit late to posting this). She’s been wanting to watch Live to 100 and is excited about the upcoming Emily in Paris season.

After starting our new Netflix subscription, the first thing I saw when launching the app was a row of mobile games, leading with Arranger. I had no intention of playing anything that night, but had heard a lot of good buzz about Arranger, so I launched it not 30 seconds after becoming a subscriber.

Then I had an epiphany: Netflix feels like the new Blockbuster.

Blockbuster is most fondly remembered as a movie rental store — truly, Netflix/streaming has been seen as the new Blockbuster for decades — but after seeing Netflix’s programming layout of movies/TV and games, I was teleported back to browsing the shelves of Blockbuster on a Friday night — my parents looking for movies while I looked for video games.

Movies/TV and games are complementary — the former is passive and latter is participatory. This often comes up on my podcast Y-Button. As a child, it was such a treat to browse both movies/TV and games under one roof, asking, “What am I in the mood for tonight?” I doubt Netflix is looking to Blockbuster as a model. And it’s not to say one can’t experience any piece of media or medium at any given time on their smartphone, or movies/TV and games on their console. But one curated location (the Netflix app) offering two types of experiences feels right.