Netflix, which has been planning to expand into the game industry for a while and even started to hire industry experts for this big step, announced that it has acquired Night School Studio, the developer of Oxenfree, an independent game studio.
The initial announcement was made on September 28 by Night School Studio founder Sean Krankel in a blog post. Making the first statement, “Night School Studio is joining the Netflix team“, Sean Krankel also signaled that Netflix has officially continuing its activities in the game industry. Sean made the following comments about the agreement that will breathe into the gaming industry:
“Night School wants to stretch our narrative and design aspirations across distinctive, original games with heart. Netflix gives film, TV, and now game makers an unprecedented canvas to create and deliver excellent entertainment to millions of people. Our explorations in narrative gameplay and Netflix’s track record of supporting diverse storytellers was such a natural pairing. It felt like both teams came to this conclusion instinctively.”
Netflix announced last July that it has hired Mike Verdu, who has experience at major companies like Oculus and EA, as its new vice president of game development. With this move, Netflix, which is expected to make a solid entry into the game industry, has already tasted the mobile game industry with the release of Stranger Things and 3 games exclusive to Europe on the mobile platform.
Sean Krankel continued his comments as follows:
“Of course, it’s a surreal honor to be the first games studio to join Netflix! Not only do we get to keep doing what we do, how we like to do it, but we get a front-row seat on the biggest entertainment platform in the world. The Netflix team has shown the utmost care for protecting our studio culture and creative vision. We’ll keep making OXENFREE II. We’ll keep cooking up new game worlds. For now, there’s a kaleidoscope of butterflies in our team’s collective stomachs. (Apparently that’s what you call a group of butterflies?) Because we truly believe we’ve got a chance to positively impact the way people discover, play, and share story games with each other.”
