00:00Michael, we were kind of joking a little bit earlier about their slate of games, Boggle, Pictionary, Trivial Pursuit.
00:06But I don't know. Pictionary? I mean, you know, if you've got a family and you want to gather around the TV,
00:11I guess that's as good as gathering around the old school boards that we used to gather around. Is it not?
00:17It is. Look, their strategy is very clearly to offer, you know, games that the lowest common denominator on Netflix want to play.
00:26So that's kind of the old Disney Channel strategy, you know, family friendly, only all G and PG rated.
00:34But if you look at Netflix, you know, film and TV, they offer anime, they offer documentary, they offer LGBTQ,
00:42which each have, you know, niche audiences and appeal to different people.
00:46I think the way for them to succeed in games is to do the same thing.
00:50And what they found the last couple of years is it's really expensive to do that.
00:54So they're going cheap and casual.
00:58And I think they're making the mistake of trying to own as much of it as they can.
01:03They're kind of not leaning into third party titles that are available elsewhere.
01:09That, I think, is the ultimate solution for them.
01:12And they have a really good guy in charge of games.
01:15He'll figure it out eventually.
01:16But I frankly think Greg Peters might be an impediment rather than, you know, the person that's going to get this strategy, you know, ultimately executed.
01:25We'll talk a little bit more about that, particularly on the cost side.
01:27Because, I mean, as you know, I mean, video games, at least the big ones, are really expensive to produce.
01:31We've been talking behind the scenes on the show about whenever GTA 6 comes out.
01:36And I think what the multiple billions that seem to have spent just developing that.
01:40This was never a company that was a stranger to spending a lot of money on, you know, scripted TV content.
01:45Why do you think they're so reticent to do that with games?
01:49It's born from their absolute fixation on exclusivity.
01:55And so the reason things are really expensive for them is because they think if they put a game on Netflix, it has to only be available on Netflix.
02:04And that wasn't true with some of their more popular games like Grand Theft Auto.
02:08But that's been their strategy on movies and TV.
02:12They want exclusives all the time.
02:13And that's the wrong strategy.
02:17Sarah was wrong when she said Netflix is not a tech company.
02:21They're very much a tech company.
02:23You said in your lead-in to this piece, they're trying to offer games on connected TVs.
02:29That's pretty heavy lifting for tech.
02:31I mean, that's really a big deal.
02:32And they're going to succeed.
02:33I mean, they can do it now, and they're going to do it really well.
02:36Right.
02:36What Netflix needs to do is look at itself the way Apple looks at iOS.
02:43Apple doesn't own anything on iOS.
02:45No apps.
02:46Nothing.
02:47No games.
02:48And yet, that's where all our games are.
02:50That's where all our apps are.
02:52Netflix needs to think about the platform that is Netflix and add games to it, which means third-party content.
02:59Why is Candy Crush not on Netflix?
03:02It should be, but it's not.
03:03Why is Fortnite not on Netflix?
03:05It could be.
03:06It should be.
03:07But it's not.
03:08And I promise you, if Netflix went to Fortnite and to Candy Crush and said, we'll give you the same terms as iOS, they would be there.
03:15So, once Netflix starts thinking of itself as a portal, and it offers to these game companies the ability for people in their homes who don't have a PC or a console to play games on their TV through an internet connection, Netflix wins.
03:29They're going to win.
03:30Right.
03:30And it's because they're a tech company that can pull that off.
03:34They just have to think outside the box, and right now they think very much inside the box.
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