Netflix has announced it will establish its own internal games studio in Helsinki, Finland, to bring original games to its millions of members worldwide. The appointed studio director will be Marko Lastikka. Lastikka previously held roles as general manager at Zynga and Electronic Arts.
Amir Rahimi, VP of Game Studios at Netflix, says,
“This is another step in our vision to build a world-class games studio that will bring a variety of delightful and deeply engaging original games — with no ads and no in-app purchases — to our hundreds of millions of members around the world.”
The studio will be built from scratch and is the second studio for Netflix in Helsinki, alongside Next Games, a mobile game studio founded in 2013 and acquired by Netflix earlier this year. According to Netflix, Helsinki is home to some of the world’s best game talent.
Netflix’s upcoming studio will be the fourth studio under its umbrella, with the other two being Night School Studio and Boss Fight Entertainment. According to Rahimi, “these four studios, each with different strengths and focus areas, will develop games that will suit the diverse tastes of our members.”
We’ll have to wait and see what type of games Netflix develops and launches in the coming years. Currently, Netflix already has a few dozen games listed on the App Store and Google Play. Some games, like Poinpy, a “juicy arcade platformer,” already boast impressive ratings.
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