It was May of last year when we were surprised to find information that Netflix might be preparing a video game subscription service. It’s odd because up until that point, whenever a game subscription service was mentioned, it was common to use the crutch of “Netflix of video games”. No one imagined when this term began to form, that eventually we could be talking about the Netflix of games, literally.

A few months later, a little over a year later, Netflix had everything ready to launch, and just a week later came the very good news that the new service would be included in the regular Netflix fee. Tests started at the end of August last year, and after the autumn release, we could already start enjoying Netflix video games in our country.

Since then, some more games have been tentatively added to the service, although the company’s plans are quite ambitious because they intend to reach 50 titles by the end of this year. And it looks like a pretty determined bet, because in addition to already reaching agreements with several developers, the company has acquired no less than three independent studios (Boss Fight Entertainment, Next Games and Night School), which seems like a good move. , because At the moment, it seems that her game design has not caught on among users.

And it is as we can read in The Verge, not even 1% of Netflix subscribers have yet tried one of the games included in their subscription. The study it’s based on says that Netflix games an average of 1.7 million users per day, a small fraction of Netflix’s 221 million subscribers worldwide. An undeniably low number, even considering that, at least for now, only iOS and Android games are offered, not PC or console.

And what are these low numbers due to? I believe, that the determining factor has to do with the few titles includedCurrently in operation. If Netflix manages to reach the end of 2022 with 50 games in its catalog, I have no doubt that the offer will be much more attractive and that we will therefore see an increase in the number of users. Now I think so too the company did not promote the service much. Without going any further and in a quick test before I started writing this report, I spoke to two people with their own Netflix subscription and neither of them knew about the games.

However, Is this a marketing failure or a conscious and quite intelligent decision? I think, although I could be wrong, that it is the second option. Netflix could promote the games from day one, but in that case it would do so with a shaky content platform, suitable for debut and early tests, but which would be disappointing for many. I think instead the company preferred to delay the “massive” promotion until the catalog was much more complete. That way, when many of its users discover the service for the first time, its design will already be much more interesting.