Along with reporting on subscriber numbers and revenue, Netflix used its Q2 letter to shareholders to address reports that the streamer will be getting into gaming.
“We’re also in the early stages of further expanding into games, building on our earlier efforts around interactivity (eg, Black Mirror Bandersnatch) and our Stranger Things games. We view gaming as another new content category for us, similar to our expansion into original films, animation and unscripted TV,” the letter says.
The Information reported in May that Netflix was looking for an executive to lead the expansion into video games. Bloomberg subsequently reported that Netflix had hired Mike Verdu from EA Games to lead a new game development department for the company.
“We’re excited as ever about our movies and TV series offering and we expect a long runway of increasing investment and growth across all of our existing content categories, but since we are nearly a decade into our push into original programming, we think the time is right to learn more about how our members value games,” the company continued in Tuesday’s shareholders letter.
The company shared plans to include games in Netflix subscriptions at no additional cost, just like films and series. The company will focus on creating games for mobile devices first.