Netflix is buying another game studio.
The company has announced that it’s acquiring a mobile game maker called Boss Fight Entertainment, which it says is supposed to “help accelerate our ability to provide Netflix members with great games wherever they want to play them,” for an undisclosed sum.
Netflix says Boss Fight Entertainment has “extensive experience building hit games across genres.” That might be true of the developers themselves—Variety reports that some of them worked at Zynga Dallas and Ensemble Studios—but the studio has only put out a single title.
That game, Dungeon Boss, is described as a “turn-based strategy RPG” made for Android and iOS devices. It was originally released in September 2015 and seems to have been updated fairly regularly until Boss Fight Entertainment stopped releasing new versions in December 2020.
Here’s what Boss Fight Entertainment’s founders said in a statement about joining Netflix:
“Boss Fight’s mission is to bring simple, beautiful, and fun game experiences to our players wherever they want to play. Netflix’s commitment to offer ad-free games as part of members’ subscriptions enables game developers like us to focus on creating delightful game play without worrying about monetization. We couldn’t be more excited to join Netflix at this early stage as we continue doing what we love to do while helping to shape the future of games on Netflix together.”
Boss Fight Entertainment is Netflix’s third gaming-related acquisition in six months. The company acquired Night School Studio in September 2021; Next Games was brought into the fold on March 1. (Maybe this is where the extra $2 per month in subscription fees is going.)
Netflix says that Boss Fight Entertainment will “continue to operate out of their current studios in Allen (Dallas), Austin, and Seattle, which will also enable us to tap into great creative talent beyond California” after the acquisition.
Neither company has said what is expected to happen to Dungeon Boss now that Boss Fight Entertainment is joining Netflix. The game features in-app purchases, which Netflix Games specifically eschew, so it’ll be interesting to see if they’re removed or if the game will be dropped.
