[LOS ANGELES] Netflix wants you to play Boggle in between binges of Stranger Things.

The streaming service is making its video games available for play on TVs for the first time, co-chief executive officer Greg Peters said on Wednesday (Oct 8) at the Bloomberg Screentime conference in Los Angeles, taking a major step forward in one of its key growth initiatives.

“One of the gaming areas we are going after is social gaming experiences that can show up on your TV,” said Peters, who gave the company a B-minus grade for its efforts in that area so far.

Netflix is specifically offering games that can be played in groups, including Boggle Party, Pictionary: Game Night, Tetris Time Warp and Lego Party.

The company has been offering games for four years, part of a plan to extend its reach beyond films and TV shows. Until now, users had to play those games on mobile devices. With the new ones, subscribers will use their phones as controllers, but much of the play will be on the big screen.

Peters has taken the lead on pushing Netflix into games, a lucrative industry that has mostly bedevilled most Hollywood studios. Targeting play on TVs makes sense because gaming on phones is a “well-developed, competitive ecosystem”.

The company is committed to games as a big part of its future, and has been investing lately in more cloud server capacity to accommodate the increased traffic.

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/lifestyle/netflix-brings-video-games-its-tv-service-first-time