Netflix has launched a slew of mobile games since it announced its push into gaming last year, but most subscribers aren’t playing them yet.
According to data from app analytics company Apptopia (via CNBC), Netflix’s games have been downloaded 23.3 million times and are played by 1.7 million subscribers daily. That’s less than 1 percent of the 221 million people subscribed to Netflix worldwide.
This report comes as Netflix faces growing competition from other streaming platforms to retain subscribers. Netflix lost over a million subscribers in the second quarter after reporting a loss of 200,000 subscribers during the first quarter in April — its first decline in over a decade.
When Netflix Games launched in November 2021, it had a small offering of five games, including Stranger Things: 1984, Stranger Things 3: The Game, Shooting Hoops, Card Blast, and Teeter Up. The games catalog has since increased to over two dozen titles, including Poinpy, This is a True Story, Exploding Kittens: The Game, the League of Legends spinoff Hextech Mayhem, Into the Breach, and Before Your Eyes.
Netflix is currently working to add more games to its catalog, including The Queen’s Gambit chess game, a Shadow and Bone RPG, a “choose your own adventure” called Too Hot to Handle, and a heist game based on La Casa de Papel (or Money Heist). It aims to have 50 games on the platform by the end of the year. To hit that goal, it has acquired three indie game studios, including Boss Fight, Next Games (which already created games based on Stranger Things and The Walking Dead), and Night School Studio, the creator of Oxenfree.
