Muscat: When was the last time you played a video game? Was it on a gaming console, PC, or on your smartphone? How about playing a game on Netflix? Well, technically, no…but yes!

Netflix has always strived for the next big thing because of its trajectory of seeking survival and adapting to change as the technology around us evolves with every passing second. I’m not denying that other players haven’t, but Netflix has had an aggressive attitude to win it all.

 COVID, other than being a nightmare of anxiety, death and destruction, made the world realise some vital truths, and especially in the world of tech, Gaming can help you earn money.

If you utter those words to your parents who were not from an era that was part of the digital boom, chances are you would be thrown out of the house for being “Lazy”. But as the years have rolled by, we have seen the gaming industry boom, especially in the smartphone realm and E-Sports. It’s highly competitive and even more inclusive than ever before.

Way before all this came to be, Netflix had tried its hand at meshing content and interactiveness through a show called Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. This show had multiple endings, and it was up to the user to pick the ending, all while watching it like any other regular show. Although questionable for many, this move was a way to open the dialogue of pushing boundaries in an already saturated market. In 2021, Netflix ventured into the gaming space with ‘Netflix Games’, which offered exclusive games for its subscribers to draw more attention towards the streaming giant. However, they have gone one step further and released it on a much larger scale, shelling out more funds and resources to carve out a space for themselves and possibly lead the streaming sector in the near future.

 Netflix has pulled in creators from Ubisoft and Halo and aims to bring bigger titles in the future. Subscribers can play paid titles for free just by being subscribed to Netflix. However, if you have been observing subscription-based trends, you know that this could change once Netflix Games becomes popular. With plans to expand this into your TVs, making cloud streaming accessible to all its subscribers, this could propel the tech industry to new heights. Steam and Microsoft have all tried it but have yet to get favourable results; we will just have to wait and see how this pans out. Who knows, maybe it will be ‘Netflix and play’ in the future for us.