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| Netflix Games uses familiar IP to create kid-friendly experiences focused on engagement and exploration. |
By Juli Scarr
Netflix has spent years telling the games industry that it wants to be taken seriously. There were early experiments with bigger-budget projects, brief flirtations with triple-A ambition, and a lot of outside expectations about what Netflix Games was supposed to become.
In a recent GamesIndustry.biz feature, Lisa Burgess, GM of Netflix Games for Kids, lays out how Netflix actually thinks about games. Once you read it closely, the company’s recent moves start to make more sense. The focus isn’t on competing with consoles or winning over traditional players. It’s about building habits, extending IP, and pulling non-gamers deeper into the Netflix ecosystem.
Recent moves like Netflix’s move into player identity and avatars, bringing a global sports franchise into Netflix Games, and testing the waters with major entertainment IP aren’t isolated decisions. They’re signals.
Netflix Isn’t Competing With Consoles and It Knows It
Early in the interview, Burgess agrees with the framing that Netflix isn’t trying to compete with console gaming or chase traditional revenue drivers. That acknowledgement is important, because it reframes the entire strategy.
Netflix doesn’t need games to replace PlayStation, Xbox, or PC. It needs games to increase time spent inside the app, reinforce its shows and brands, and make the subscription harder to cancel.
That’s why engagement, not revenue, is the primary success metric for kids games. Developers aren’t being pushed to design paywalls or funnels. They’re being pushed to design something kids actually want to spend time with.
This alone explains why Netflix’s games often feel disconnected from gaming culture. They’re not built for it.
The Kids Pillar Is the Real Anchor
Netflix talks about four gaming pillars: party games, kids games, narrative games, and mainstream games. On paper, they sound equal. In practice, kids games are doing far more of the work.
Burgess makes it clear that Netflix is focused on ages eight and under, with a strong skew toward preschool. The reasoning is simple. When kids connect with an IP, the attachment is higher than it is for adults.
They don’t just watch it. They want to play it. They want the toys. They want it on their clothes. At that age, an IP becomes part of daily life. Netflix isn’t chasing short-term spending. It’s chasing long-term familiarity.
This lines up with Netflix’s broader reality as a platform. In markets like the US and UK, Netflix is already in a majority of households. Kids games aren’t about expanding into new homes as much as deepening engagement inside the homes Netflix already occupies.
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| Netflix’s kids games span familiar IP, creative tools, and simple puzzle experiences designed for younger audiences. |
Discoverability and Parental Control Come First
One of the most revealing parts of the interview is how much groundwork had to be done before kids games could even appear in kids profiles.
This wasn’t about debate or hesitation. It was about infrastructure. The SDK wasn’t originally designed to support kids games in a way that met Netflix’s standards for parental control, safety, and user experience. Fixing that came first.
Burgess repeatedly frames progress as trajectory, not finish lines. The goal isn’t to flood the platform. It’s to move steadily in the right direction while keeping parents comfortable and kids protected.
IP First, Original Second
When Burgess talks about what Netflix looks for in kids game IP, the priorities are clear. Recognition comes first. That can mean Netflix-owned shows, toy brands, literary properties, or familiar names from the broader games space. The key requirement is that it’s easy to understand why the game exists on Netflix.
There’s no appetite here for abstract originality or experimental design. The game needs to slot naturally into a kid’s existing relationship with a brand. This framing helps explain why Netflix keeps circling well-known names and established properties. Games aren’t being used to introduce ideas. They’re being used to reinforce ones that already exist.
Engagement Now, Identity Later
When asked what comes next, Burgess points to customisation and personalization as expectations for Gen Alpha.
Netflix isn’t just thinking about what kids play today. It’s thinking about what they’ll expect by default tomorrow. Accounts, avatars, preferences, and continuity across devices all point toward one thing: making Netflix feel like a place you belong, not just something you watch.
That’s where Netflix Games quietly becomes more important than it looks.
What This Means for Traditional Players
If Netflix Games has ever felt confusing or underwhelming, this interview explains why. The platform isn’t being built for traditional players. It’s being built for kids, families, and people who don’t already think of themselves as gamers.
That doesn’t make the strategy wrong. It just makes it very different from what much of the industry expected. Netflix isn’t trying to win the console war. It’s trying to make games feel as natural inside Netflix as hitting play on a show.
Once you see that, everything else falls into place.
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