Netflix Plans To Bring Gaming Services To IOS, What About Strict Apple Policies?

Netflix, enters the world of gaming this November. (photo: doc. Netflix)

JAKARTA - Netflix just entered the world of gaming, earlier this month, with the launch of five mobile game titles for Android users that have been expanded globally. This project is claimed to be launched also for iOS users.

Five of those titles are Stranger Things: 1984, Stranger Things 3: The Game, Shooting Hoops, Card Blast, and Teeter Up. However, plans to bring its game service to iOS. Will Netflix really be allowed by Apple?

Apple's policies in the App Store are stricter which will prevent the streaming movie service from bringing the games available on its app directly.

Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman said that Apple is banning third-party apps from serving as a hub for games, which has become a point of contention with cloud gaming services such as Xbox Cloud Gaming, Nvidia GeForce Now, and Google Stadia.

Cloud gaming services can only be offered by getting around it through a web application, as Facebook has done. Gurman said Netflix would fight against Apple's rules by making its games available through the App Store.

This means that the game cannot be downloaded or played from the Netflix app, but users can only launch it from there and they will be directed to the App Store. The service works this way on Android, where the games are neatly packaged in special tabs in the Netflix app, but downloaded individually from the Google Play Store.

While this is fine, it's not ideal for an all-in-one gaming service. Supposedly, users download and play games from within the service itself. That's why Gurman predicts that Netflix will eventually bring its games to the cloud.

Again, this would work fine for Android, but Apple's policies make the cloud game nearly impossible to thrive, by forcing Netflix to settle for very few web apps.

"Apple needs to change its rules or give Netflix an exception. That leaves the ultimate success of the Netflix service in the hands of Apple, a longtime partner but also a growing rival," Gurman said as quoted by The Verge, Monday, November 8.