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Netflix Has Games But Won’t Share With Everyone Yet

Photo: Netflix

Netflix launched its much anticipated foray into gaming today but left some of us on the loading screen. The five free mobile games launched are only available via Netflix’s Android app for the time being. Sorry, iPhone stans, but you’ll have to wait a few months for the app update. For the Android mobile users, though, the games are available through Google Play and will slowly start showing up on Netflix starting tomorrow. And they look interesting enough, even if the Stranger Things ones have been around a while and just feel like IP grabs:

• Stranger Things: 1984
• Stranger Things 3: The Game
• Shooting Hoops
• Card Blast
• Teeter (Up)

They’ll live on a dedicated content row, probably somewhere between the top ten and the highly specific interest categories you can’t get enough of (hello again, “TV Dramas Based on Books”). Netflix officially announced its gaming ambitions in July, when it hired game exec Mike Verdu, and the company tested a couple of these games in Poland already. Even if most of the games seem like relatively simple time-wasters — Teeter (Up) entails nudging a ball into a hole — they’re available worldwide, in multiple languages, on as many devices as your account already supports, and (crucially, for mobile games) void of ads and in-app purchases. One of them, Stranger Things 3: The Game used to go for $20 on PS4, Switch, Xbox One, and Steam before being yanked from storefronts in August. Now it goes for $0. Praise the Demogorgon.

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Netflix Has Games But Won’t Share With Everyone Yet