The US-based popular streaming service Netflix opened a new internal video game studio in Helsinki, Finland. The news directly comes from Netflix’s VP of Game Studios, Amir Rahimi.
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Netflix has been quite active in the video game space in 2022, acquiring studios and adding new games to its library regularly. The streaming platform even shook hands with Ubisoft for a game deal that includes new titles earlier this month.
The new Netflix studio in Helsinki will have Marko Lastikka, former Zynga Helsinki General Manager, as the Studio Director and will have identical goals to the rest of the Netflix-owned game makers: “Building world-class video games.”
Rahimi says Netflix chose Helsinki due to its outstanding talent pool in the gaming world. Netflix already has another studio in Helsinki dubbed Next Games, so they’re actually no strangers to what to expect from Finnish game developers. Rahimi adds that this new studio will be built from scratch and will help Netflix Games deliver across a wide range of different tastes in games.
Rahimi also underlined that Netflix has a long way to go “to deliver great games experiences” and acknowledged that making video games can take years. The experienced VP joined Netflix less than a year ago and helmed the growth of the streaming platform’s presence in the video game space since then.
Just yesterday, Night School Studio, one of the gaming entities Netflix bought about a year ago launched “a Netflix Edition” of critically acclaimed Oxenfree. This version finds Netflix subscribers at no extra cost and comes with special features.
Earlier this summer, Netflix’s mobile games hit the 13 million downloads mark, per Sensor Tower’s data. The graphs showed declining numbers since hitting peak numbers in December 2021, but overall a positive and steady growth since the spring of 2022.
