Streaming giant, Netflix announced that it has acquired Spry Fox, an indie gaming studio based in Seattle that specialises in cozy games. The company which disclosed this, said in a blog post today Monday, the deal will “add to the growing variety of Netflix’s games catalog.”
No information about the deal’s financials was provided, other than Spry Fox is the company’s sixth in-house gaming studio. Netflix’s vice president of game studios, Amir Rahimi, however noted that the acquisition will enable the company move more quickly in another popular genre of game production.
“Our games journey has only just begun, but I’m proud of the foundational work we’ve been doing to build out our in-house creative capacity so that we can deliver the best possible games experience — including no ads and no in-app purchases — to our members as part of their membership,” Rahimi said in the blog post.
Spry Fox was founded in 2010 by David Edery and Daniel Cook. The games studio is known for popular titles like “Triple Town,” “Alphabear” and “Cozy Grove.”
“When David and I founded Spry Fox twelve years ago, our goal was to create a place where kind, creative people could make beautiful, original games in a supportive environment that brought happiness to the people who played them,” said Daniel Cook, co-founder of Spry Fox, in the same blog post. “After many heartfelt conversations, we are all excited about joining Netflix as an in-house game studio and building amazing games together.”
A few weeks ago, Netflix’s VP of gaming, Mike Verdu, announced onstage at an event that his company would be launching a gaming studio in Southern California.
Marko Lastikka, formerly the general manager of the Zynga Helsinki game production studio and now Netflix’s head of internal games, was hired last month to head up Netflix’s new studio for developing original video game content.
Now, adding to Netflix’s roster of game development firms are Next Games, Night School Studio, and Boss Fight Entertainment.
Netflix’s long-term vision for mobile gaming goes far beyond the more casual gaming releases it has made available to subscribers since launching Netflix Games in November2021.
The company has stated that it is still in the early stages of its mobile gaming efforts and that new games can take years to build.
The company has recently made investments in gaming studios, which will help bolster its efforts toward gaming. This is especially important because it still needs to persuade its subscribers that it is a serious contender in the gaming industry.
Though Netflix has 221 million subscribers as of August, Apptopia statistics shows that only 1.7 million people play Netflix games on a daily basis, and that the entire portfolio has only seen 23.3 million downloads.
However, as Netflix’s recent announcements have shown, the company’s ambitions in the gaming space extend beyond the one-off agreements it has struck with companies to licence games for its portfolio.
There are currently 35 games available on Netflix, with another 14 currently under development at the company’s own studios. Verdu has stated that at the present time there are 55 games “in flight” on its platform.
