Netflix says it’s opening a video game studio in Finland as streamer tries to boost audience numbers

Netflix said Monday it will be opening an internal game studio in Finland.

This is the company’s first push into internal game development since streaming giant entered the mobile gaming space in November 2021. The company has already purchased three external game studios over the past year. Netflix bought Next Games, which is also based in Finland, for about $72 million.

Netflix already has a cache of over 20 mobile games available for download to Netflix subscribers, and the company plans to have 50 by the end of the year. The catalog includes “Stranger Things: 1984” and “Queen’s Gambit Chess,” which are based on Netflix series.

The streamer’s foray into gaming is in its early stages, but, as of August, not many Netflix subscribers were playing. Less than 1% of Netflix’s 220 million subscribers engaged with the games daily, according to Apptopia. Netflix didn’t immediately respond to a question about its game engagement.

The company, which has lost overall subscribers during recent quarters, touted the newly announced studio as a place for Netflix to internally develop games alongside its existing subsidiary studios, which also include Night School Studio and Boss Fight Entertainment.

“It’s still early days, and we have much more work to do to deliver a great games experience on Netflix,” read a statement Netflix VP of Game Studios Amir Rahimi. “Creating a game can take years, so I’m proud to see how we’re steadily building the foundation of our games studios in our first year.”

The company said that its games will have no ads no in-app purchases. Currently users can see the games offered within the Netflix app, but the games themselves download as individual apps.