A few years ago, the streaming company Netflix was actively acquiring game developers, but now it is shutting them down.
Unhinged
This time the "axe" will fall on the following companies:
- Night School Studio — creators of Oxenfree and Afterparty, which released their latest game titled Unhinged just a month and a half ago. The team became a part of Netflix in 2021.
- Moonloot — a studio founded under the umbrella of Netflix in 2022 that didn't manage to release a single game.
Additionally, Netflix plans to lay off an undisclosed number of employees from its entire gaming division.
Netflix representatives explained the changes to the media by citing a desire to focus on specific categories of games. The company is particularly interested in children's games, party games, narrative titles, and projects capable of attracting a massive audience, like the recent FIFA World Cup: Launch Edition (85% of its developers were laid off in August two months after the game's release. — Ed.).
Netflix began its expansion into the gaming industry five years ago with the purchase of Night School Studio, but in recent times it has divested several of its game development studios. It is suggested that the gaming division of the company now comprises only one full-fledged studio — Next Games — and an internal team that collaborates with external developers.