Netflix is building its own game studio | Hacker News Reader

Netflix is building its own game studio

engadget.com

19 pointsmfiguiere19 comments

> The streaming giant is forming an in-house game studio in Helsinki, Finland to create "world-class" original games without ads or in-app purchases. While it's too soon for details of the games themselves, Zynga and EA alumnus Marko Lastikka will serve as director.

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They're hiring someone that worked at two companies that are known as the KINGS of in-game ads and purchases to make games without in-game ads and purchases?

I'm not exactly holding my breath on these games being any good at all.

I was wondering if this was well-known / out in the open or not. I've been reached out to by recruiters with the subject line "Netflix -- Gaming" (I don't know why, I've never worked in gamedev and don't particularly have much interest in it, just personally not a fit for me!) a couple weeks after their larger layoff announcement, which I thought was interesting, to say the least.

However the role was specifically for Los Angeles where I'm based, and it seem their hiring portal still is hiring for LA and not Finland? Would they really have two competing game studios? [1]

https://jobs.netflix.com/jobs/218982716

I'd say that's more promising than anything.

Ads come last as they are a guaranteed detriment to the experience. You have to make something really engaging first. The fact that they've created games so ad-laden to be known for it means they had to create an experience so engaging as to support the drag all those ads create on the experience.

I take it you've never played an ad-laden game.

> Ads come last as they are a guaranteed detriment to the experience.

You definitely have that backwards. Some games are created for the purpose of selling ads. They time-gate progress, but offer to let you fast-forward through the gate by watching an ad or by selling you in-game currency.

> You have to make something really engaging first

The games are "engaging" via psychological tricks, not through actually being good games. For example, they'll offer you a loot box in exchange for watching a 15-30 second ad video. Idle games like Egg Inc will give you a 24-hour boost to your income for watching an ad, and as you play will offer ads to get instant bonuses.

Not really. It's usually the emphasis in many mobile games. Meaning the design the game specifically to play ads. Not the last thing they think of. It's part of the design pattern at many companies but especially mobile. Taking someone who's only experience is designing intricately paywalled games is not going to come out to a good game. Let's just hope he has other experience.

I'm inclined to point out

https://www.wired.com/story/google-stadia-games-entertainmen...

but Netflix might stay the course better than Google did because Netflix is used to the development process for movies which I think shares more with game development than the kind of software development that Google is good at.

Also Amazon[0], who found out that hiring a bunch of veteran developers, putting them in the same room together and showering them with money does not equal a successful game.

Are there any examples of an established company "breaking in" to the game industry and creating a significantly successful product? If so I would like to hear about it.

I feel like a lot of game companies that regularly release successful games have a difficult-to-quantify mix of experience and team cohesion. To the outsider executive it might seem like you can build this from scratch with the right budget, but I think it's a lot more complicated than that.

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-01-29/amazon-ga...

So far as cloud gaming is concerned, it seemed to me that Google could have tried developing a game that would have justified cloud gaming.

It seems to me in cloud gaming you could have a monstrous server with multiple GFX cards attached that could run the simulation and do the rendering for, say, 20 simultaneous users. If you were looking for a quantum leap in gameplay and graphics this is an obvious route, and Google would have been in a good position to develop it in terms of having cloud resources, systems programming talent, and money to throw at the problem.

(Of course, the idea that system programming > application programming is a certain way to get underperformance from systems programmers. Also, back when cloud gaming was fashionable, there wasn't any need to justify cloud gaming since all of their competitors were doing it. GFX card shortages were a gift to cloud gaming which is about to go into reverse.)

I feel like a "technology first, game second" approach is a trap. Perhaps I'm wrong and there are examples of it working out but in general it seems building a game to justify hardware is a losing proposition.

In response to your specific idea - I think something like that could be an interesting approach, but the difference between what the cloud GPU cluster can do vs an enthusiast-level video card would have to be massive - in a way that is both apparent and relevant to the average player. Obviously there would be an noticeable difference in the quality of rendering and overall simulation, but unless it's competently intertwined with the design of the game, I don't think a lot of players are going to care - outside of the "whoa, cool" aspect which is fleeting.

I’d basically agree that a good game with old technology is better than a bad game with new technology. Cloud Gaming is a bit like Blockchain gaming in that there is a contingent of firms that think it’s the future but nobody bothered to ask the players what they think.

This is Google we are talking about, however, and they have advanced technology in their DNA. In fact, they are such believers in technology that a believer in games is going to feel unsupported at Google whatever they do.

If the goal was to produce exclusive games with the brand power of Nintendo then the Stadia studio was doomed. When it comes to games that are exclusive because of technology than Google had a chance and they could have demonstrated the concept, made a framework accessible to people who were better at games, and get patents to lock down the technology.

I’d contrast the Nintendo strategy to the Id Games strategy —- even though the ludic design of Id Games were superb they kept making the same game over and over again motivated by improvements in technology. It’s not the only or even the best way to make it in games, but is is the path Google rejected in favor of having no path. Cloud gaming really needed something like that because it needs to answer the question “Why?”

The game I’d point to for inspiration is Titanfall which showed what was possible with cloud-based simulation. At first glance Titanfall was just another shooter but it was fun for everyone no matter how good or bad of a player they were and was bigger and more tightly coupled than previous multiplayer combat games. I see a worthwhile cloud-based game being something like Titanfall squared for whatever genre it is based on.

> So far as cloud gaming is concerned, it seemed to me that Google could have tried developing a game that would have justified cloud gaming.

Hah! Stadia G&E (games and entertainment) was indeed created and then subsequently shuttered down (https://kotaku.com/google-stadia-shuts-down-internal-studios..., https://www.theguardian.com/games/2021/feb/02/google-stadia-...)

Microsoft could be argued as one, but Microsoft could be also disregarded because they simply have acquired Microsoft Flight Simulator, Age of Empires and Halo.

Flight Simulator is an especially fun example because Microsoft didn't want to be in games at the time. It has been said that Bill Gates thought games were mostly a waste of time and worked very hard to make sure that the early many years of the company Microsoft had no games division. Microsoft bought Flight Simulator because it wasn't "entirely" a game, and was a good technical demo of PC capabilities. Microsoft wasn't trying to build a game studio. Microsoft "accidentally" built a game studio when people wanted Flight Simulator updates every couple of years. (Many of those people weren't even game players, but various users of Flight Simulator in non-game uses such as people using Flight Simulator as a learning tool or as they call it a "simulator".)

Maybe you can't force a game studio to happen, you have to accidentally walk into it?

Same for Xbox being (initially) seen as a deadweight to Microsoft. Microsoft is not even looking beyond office and enterprise when Nintendo and Sega were the players in the game console industry, but when Sony launched PlayStation (and the associated threat of a Sony-connected home entertainment and productivity system basically preventing Microsoft from selling Windows at home users), Microsoft just launched Xbox to counter PlayStation.

Yes, but it's also weirder than that, because Microsoft was a hardware and software partner with Sega on the Dreamcast. Microsoft was hoping to keep the three-horse race between Nintendo, Sega, and Sony in tact by offering support for things that Sega had ceased operating in house. The Xbox may not have existed at all if Sega hadn't been trying to cut corners and outsourcing random bits of Dreamcast hardware/software to whoever would answer the call and Microsoft being in the weird spot where they felt like they had to answer that call.

... and Activision!

I'm sure glad they increased subscription costs and cancelled good niche shows to fund this!

Is there any evidence that Netflix’ existing game efforts are retaining subscribers?

No. See https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/06/netflixs-video-game-push-see...

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