Game developer Boss Fight Entertainment joins Netflix
Netflix has acquired its third game development studio in six months.
Boss Fight Entertainment, an independent Texas-based game development studio, is the streaming giant's third game-flavored acquisition in just six months and follows the takeover of Finnish mobile developer Next Games earlier this month, and Oxenfree 2 developer Night School Studio, which Netflix added to its portfolio in 2021.
"Boss Fight's mission is to bring simple, beautiful, and fun game experiences to our players wherever they want to play," said the founders of Boss Fight Entertainment in a statement posted to Netflix's official website.
Today, we’re excited to announce that Boss Fight Entertainment is joining Netflix! https://t.co/6CWZWDNGqe
— Boss Fight (@BossFightEnt) March 24, 2022
Founded in 2013, the studio’s veteran team has produced some of the industry’s best-selling and most critically acclaimed games for mobile, social, PC, and consoles. These titles include the Age of Empires Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Halo Wars franchises, as well as the free-to-play mega-hits CastleVille, Dungeon Boss, myVEGAS Bingo and Kingdom Boss.
“Netflix’s commitment to offer ad-free games as part of members’ subscriptions enables game developers like us to focus on creating delightful game play without worrying about monetization. We couldn’t be more excited to join Netflix at this early stage as we continue doing what we love to do while helping to shape the future of games on Netflix together.”
"We're still in the early days of building great game experiences as part of your Netflix membership," added Amir Rahimi, Netflix's VP of game studios. "Through partnerships with developers around the world, hiring top talent, and acquisitions like this, we hope to build a world-class games studio capable of bringing a wide 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."
Netflix confirmed its interest in video games last July 2021, and revealed it will primarily focus on mobile experiences. The platform has been acquiring new gaming studios and quietly rolling out new games the past few months on the app.
"We view gaming as another new content category for us, similar to our expansion into original films, animation, and unscripted TV. Games will be included in members' Netflix subscription at no additional cost similar to films and series," stated a letter to investors at the time.
"Initially, we'll be primarily focused on games for mobile devices. We're excited as ever about our movies and TV series offering and we expect a long runway of increasing investment and growth across all of our existing content categories, but since we are nearly a decade into our push into original programming, we think the time is right to learn more about how our members value games."
As of March 2022, there are currently 16 games available to Netflix subscribers in the streaming platform's growing gaming library.
The latest additions include the environmental themed platformer This is a True Story, the retro brick arcade game Shatter Remastered with the zombie shooter/hybrid Into The Dead 2: Unleashed set to arrive this month as well.