Stop making fun of Netflix games and start playing them
When it comes to movies and TV, Netflix-style subscription services are a bit of a scam. They’re designed to give the appearance of value rather than actual value. The hope is that you’ll just keep paying and never really think about how much or how little you use it — let alone do the math to see if it’s more cost-effective to just buy the products you really want, rather than have access to a bunch that you don’t. power want. It’s FOMO as a business model, terribly appealing and a great way to make a ton of money disappear, about $15-$20 a month.
What makes them bearable are the moments when they you feeling like you’re getting away with something. Just watching Netflix isn’t enough, but if you’re playing games — the games that come free with your Netflix subscription — then you are.
“Wait, Netflix has games?” is a fairly common headline, the implicit joke being that no Netflix subscribers come to Netflix to play games, and that the streaming giant is wasting its time chasing them. That may be true. But there’s no reason you shouldn’t benefit from a puzzling act of corporate arrogance.
The Netflix gaming library is small but pretty spectacular, and crucially, all of these games play well on smartphones or tablets — the devices you’ll be using Netflix on most anyway. The service launched with early hits like Point and spectacular ports such as Into the breach — and since then even more games have been added.
To consider NarratorDaniel Benmergui’s witty puzzle game about playfully rearranging characters, scenes, and desires to tell mix-and-match comic stories. Or one of the very best games of 2022, the intricate mystery The Case of the Golden IdolSurrender to the classic chaos of Sonic maniaor the visually odd, yet playable Grand Theft Auto remastered trilogy.
Did you know you could play really well? Immortality right there on your dang Emily in Paris machine? Profane!
Of course, none of this will stop being cool once Netflix decides that this is something they should charge extra for. So this isn’t a blanket endorsement of Netflix’s current inexplicable plan to include games in their offerings. Instead, consider this a strong suggestion to anyone currently subscribed: if you’re going to rock Netflix’s shows, maybe make their games part of your entertainment rotation, too, and stat.
Because that’s another way subscription services take advantage of you: by implying that what’s available now will always be available, when they’re not technically promising anything of the sort. Since we’re talking about a company that popularized the enforced scarcity of streaming catalogs, it’s probably safer to assume that the cool show or movie you’ve been putting off watching forever will be gone by the time you make the time to watch it. The same is probably true for games, so I say smoke ’em while you’ve got ’em.
Of course you can also buy them, then you don’t have to worry about anything.