Netflix starts its own game studio in Finland

Netflix announces the establishment of an ‘internal game studio’ in Helsinki, Finland. Former Zynga and EA Helsinki CEO Marko Lastikka will be the director of the new studio. As of yet, no name of the game studio has been disclosed.

The streaming service is said to be plans to establish a world-class game studio to bring “a variety of fun and engaging original games, without ads or in-app purchases, to hundreds of millions of members.” Netflix’s Game Studios vice president Amir Rahimi emphasizes that it will take a while before the new Finnish studio will actually release games. “It [project] is still in the early stages and there is still a lot of work to be done. Making games can take years, so I look forward to building the foundations of our game studios over the coming years.”

Netflix has been offering games via the service since the end of 2021, which are currently made by third parties. Earlier this year, the streaming giant bought its first game studio, Next Games, which is also based in Helsinki. In the long term, Netflix wants to release more of its own games, although figures suggested that the game part of the streaming service is not yet very popular.