Civ6 soon available at Netflix (yes, the game; no, not a movie)

[The_J]

As announced by various news outlets, e.g. The Verge, Netflix will be adding more games to their portfolio, including Civ6, among others.
Netflix has in recent years tried to get a foot into the gaming market, and has a small library of games, which they are slowly expanding. While many of them are casual games, they also include highlights such as "Into The Breach" and "Terra Nil". The latest batch is certainly the most interesting ones for serious games, and it does not get more serious than Civ6!

 

[Quintillus]

Platinum Edition as well.

I feel like this makes more sense for Firaxis than it does for Netflix. For Firaxis, it's an opportunity to gain new fans ahead of Civ7's release, crucially fans who were unlikely to buy or even discover Civ VI otherwise, and they earn some amount of revenue from Netflix.

For Netflix, is anyone going to sign up for Netflix to play Civ VI when there are already regular very good sales, in the range of "Platinum Edition for the price of a month of Netflix, but keep it forever"? There are other games too, but the more they build out the game catalog, the more that will have to factor into their pricing, which makes them less competitive for the folks who just want to watch movies or TV shows.

Netflix is already at $15.50/month, which is not much less than HBO Max ($17/month), and more than Paramount Plus with Showtime and Without Ads, at $13/month, or Apple TV+ at $10/month. Wasn't that long ago that it cost considerably less:

Source

$10 in 2016 would be about $13 adjusted for inflation, so they're overshooting inflation. Meanwhile, on-demand movie rentals have stayed flat at $4 - watch fewer than 4 per month on average, and you're better off renting on-demand from a much wider selection.

There's probably a place for an "all media" subscription, but is that the right strategy for Netflix?

 

[vorlon_mi]

Consider another angle -- Netflix is working to reduce password sharing, where one account is used by multiple members in a family. One of the siblings is considering, "is it worth it for me to buy my own Netflix subscription?" Now, that person has another reason. The person will get not just movies, shows, and other videos on demand, but they will get access to games. Makes it more attractive.

I agree that -- on its own -- a Netflix subscription is an expensive way for a person to get access to games. But if the person already has Netflix for some other reason, then access to games like Civ6 is a reason to *keep* Netflix.

 

[Disgustipated]

Pardon my ignorance, but how does that work? How do you play a game over Netflix? I haven't had Netflix in years, I'm certainly not going to subscribe to play a game.

 

[vorlon_mi]

I did a little poking around on the Netflix website. They have support for mobile games, so that would include Civ6 running on iOS or Android devices.
They list "Terra Nil", along with a whole bunch of casual games.

 

[The_J]

Pardon my ignorance, but how does that work? How do you play a game over Netflix? I haven't had Netflix in years, I'm certainly not going to subscribe to play a game.

As @vorlon_mi hints, this seems to only apply for mobile devices. The Netflix website says that you essentially need to install the games via the Netflix app.

I don't think that Civ is really the best candidate for this, but I guess someone at Netflix must have thought about this .

 

[Quintillus]

I'm also curious about Disgustipated's question. Netflix does have a Metro app for Windows 10+, so it's possible that this is indeed the full-fat desktop version of Civ. If I currently had a Netflix subscription, I'd try it just to see how it works.

But the answer being less obvious than, say, Steam's "download Steam for Windows/Mac/Linux and it downloads games for you" does suggest that vorlon_mi may be right that it's more aimed at convincing existing subscribers to stay for another month or two than getting new ones to sign up.

 

[madeirabhoy]

This is excellent news. I already own civ vi on 3 formats but this is great. Having paid full price for civ vi on my Mac the day it came out plus all the dlc plus at some stage the complete edition on my ps5 on sale. Then bought the basic game for my iPad but couldn’t stomach the cost of the dlc on top so when I’m on a flight I play it but miss the improvements of the dlcs