Netflix is not making the move for everybody; it is a bold step that the company is taking. They have dropped nothing less than seventy-eight billion dollars, which, by the way, is with a B. The whole Warner Bros. Discovery co. is now under their control. Forget about movies and TV, HBO, all the cinematic universe. Even at such a high financial level, someone was curious about the gaming part. You know, the ones behind Mortal Kombat, Arkham, and Hogwarts Legacy? That minor side project.
Peters, Netflix’s co-CEO, says that the whole gaming part of the deal was more of a second thought. He did, however, mention to the investors that the games ‘were’; ‘relatively minor compared to the grand scheme of things,’ which could be the reason for the enormous $83 billion bid. Minor. Ouch.
Just wait a second. The situation is one where you created money that is beyond the reach of most countries, and then you just ignore a studio that has all the big franchises in the gaming world. It is like you bought a mega-mansion, and the Olympic-sized swimming pool in your backyard was the reason you did not even know about it. The one gamer managed to put it that way and made us agree with him/her.
Social media players’ reactions were immediate and somewhat amusing in their disbelief. Users pointed to the sheer… audacity? of calling that studio, which has Mortal Kombat among its releases, ‘minor’. One user countered, claiming that Arkham City has had a cultural impact that is bigger than a large part of Netflix’s original shows combined. They might be right, think about it: how many Netflix shows have established a genre for 10 years?
Some users could just not understand. One of the comments that said “Tf you are talking about man” encapsulates the initial confusion. Another person joked that Netflix, with one sentence, just told millions of gamers that they are not important at all. And it might come as a surprise those who are already completely in bvided in their love of these gaming worlds. One person was so worried that the gaming world might die out that they posed a question of whether “Valdomoith will never face death, and Frodo will never complete his mission” – a wild scenario but a very sincere concern for the storytelling they love.
The prevalent view seems to be that it is a slight disappointment from the side of the Warner Bros. gaming division. The new management might not be interested in your millions and fanbase; to them, you might just be a good item on their income statements. A very, very profitable item, but an item nonetheless. A player summed it up like this: “When WB Games is sitting on Mortal Kombat, Batman, and Hogwarts Legacy, calling it ‘minor’ is a wild take.” He even added the skull emoji for emphasis. Wild, indeed.
But then again, is Peters actually wrong in a technical sense? I mean, he is not coming from a personal, emotional standpoint but rather looking through the cold, impersonal corporate spreadsheets? Probably not. When one is committing $83 billion, the gaming division’s worth while gigantic to us, may indeed be a lesser percentage of the whole pie. The “grand scheme” that he is talking about is nothing but streaming domination, global content libraries, and rivalry with Disney types. In that war, gaming is going to be for now at best the secondary theater.
The question gamers are asking now is… what will be the consequences? Will Netflix just concentrate on its core streaming business and allow the gaming goldmine it just acquired to kind of fade away? Or is it just a sophisticated way of saying that corporations are distracted by the lure of game consoles? Some are even asking if the gaming industry is not being completely overestimated by Netflix. Others consider that it is a perfectly logical move for a company that is still deciding on its gaming strategy – remember those mobile games?
This is a tricky moment. On the one hand, you get the giant deal of one billion dollars that changes the face of entertainment. On the other, the non-interactive strength of that entertainment is being told they were barely a factor. It is a very clear indication of how the communication lines flow and where the priorities lie within mega-mergers. For gamers, it’s a bit of a nervous wait-and-see. Will Netflix prove everyone wrong and pour resources into those beloved franchises? Or will Batman and Sub-Zero be just more minutes of the vast algorithm-driven library?
Only time will provide an answer. But the message from the very top of the company is very clear for tonight: in the grand, $83 billion scheme of Netflix’s plans, the games were just part of the furniture. And the gaming community has definitely taken note. So yeah, minor detail, I guess. Just a minor detail. Just a minor detail that happens to include some of the most popular PlayStation and Xbox franchises.
