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Netflix is once again scaling back its involvement in making games in its own studios. The company has decided to close its Los Angeles-based Night School studio and plans to shut down the Moonloot team in Helsinki. The decision is particularly surprising in Night School’s case, because the studio released the game Unhinged on Netflix just six weeks ago. According to Netflix’s co-CEO, the title was performing very well. The company says, however, that it still intends to develop gaming, though it wants to focus on selected genres and production models.
Netflix closes Night School and Moonloot
Night School was acquired by Netflix in 2021 and had previously become best known for the acclaimed game Oxenfree. After the acquisition the studio produced, among other things, a second entry in that series and a mobile title tied to an episode of the Black Mirror series. The team's most recent project was Unhinged, a short, roughly 30-minute first-person horror available on Netflix. The game debuted just six weeks before the studio's closure was announced. Interestingly, Netflix's co-CEO Greg Peters recently praised the title's performance during an investor call. According to him, Unhinged was performing very well, which makes the decision to close Night School even more surprising. Netflix also plans to shut down Moonloot, a Helsinki-based studio founded in 2022. The company did not provide an exact number of employees who will lose their jobs as a result of the changes. Netflix did say it is grateful to everyone leaving the company for their contributions to game development. The changes also include headcount reductions in the central gaming team. The company says the reorganization will allow it to focus on its top priorities.
Netflix changes its gaming strategy
Netflix argues it still sees games as a way to expand its entertainment offering, but wants to focus primarily on kids' games, party games, story-driven titles, and projects with broad potential. Among examples of that direction, the company points to the recently released FIFA game. This is another shift in Netflix's approach to its studios, because a few years ago the company was rapidly building up its internal development capabilities. Netflix began gaming in 2021, initially offering mobile games as an extra benefit for subscribers. In subsequent years the company started experimenting with playing on TVs and PCs via streaming. This model was used by, among others, Unhinged, where a smartphone can serve as the controller. In 2024 Netflix shut down the Team Blue studio, which had been working on a high-budget first-person game. The following year it also closed Boss Fight, and then sold the Spry Fox studio, which made cozy games, to its founders. After the latest changes, Netflix is left with a central gaming team working with external developers and Helsinki-based studio Next Games. That model increasingly resembles the way Netflix produces films and series, since the company there also largely relies on outside creators. Netflix is not giving up on games, but it is clearly cutting back the number of its in-house development teams.
Netflix is once again shutting down its in-house game studios, this time Night School and Moonloot. The decision regarding Night School is particularly surprising, since its latest title, Unhinged, appeared on the platform just a few weeks ago. The company says, however, that it is not pulling out of the gaming market. Instead, it plans to put more emphasis on selected genres and on collaborating with external developers.
source: gamefile
