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Netflix and Game 🎮
The Great Tech Cash Out of ‘24 🏦
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Netflix and Game 🎮
I recently went on a first date with a girl. We were having a great time. Towards the end of the date, I whipped out the big guns and asked her if she would come back to my place to Netflix and Chill.
To my surprise, she said Yes. We came back to my place. What happened next really puzzled me.
As usual, I fired up Netflix on my phone. Downloaded GTA: San Andreas and asked her if she would instead prefer to play GTA: Vice City.
She immediately got up, shouted “Are you serious!” and banged the door as she left.
@thefrazmaz Since when did @Netflix get games, AND free with yoir subscription?? CRAZY
The Attention Economy
Almost all of us view Netflix as a media streaming platform for movies and TV series.
However, Netflix has always seen themselves as being in the business of capturing attention.
In a 2017 earnings call, CEO Reed Hastings said: “You know, think about it, when you watch a show from Netflix and you get addicted to it, you stay up at night. We’re competing with sleep, on the margin.”
In a 2019 shareholder letter, Netflix stated: “We compete with (and lose to) Fortnite more than HBO.”
Building the Netflix of Gaming
Netflix officially entered the gaming business in 2021 and has been stealthily and slowly growing it since then.
It has a collection of more than 80 games, 2.2M subscribers playing its games and has racked up more than 80M downloads since its inception.
Its gaming content strategy includes designing games off of their original IP such as “Stranger Things” and “Too Hot To Handle” as well as licensing popular games such as “Grand Theft Auto”.
This is paving the path for greater ambitions: Cloud Gaming.
The company is building an AAA (aka big budget) gaming studio from scratch in hopes to climb a notoriously tough mountain where we’ve already seen a high profile victim - Google Stadia.
All major players are trying to build the “Netflix of Gaming” and fairly so, Netflix itself has also entered the competition.
Netflix is hoping to make games its next big content venture, a venture that could help with consumer retention, attract more subscribers and ultimately print a lot more dollar bills after the company squeezes the juice out of password sharing and showcasing ads.
The Great Tech Cash Out of ‘24 🏦
Ever heard the saying, “Strike while the iron is hot”. That’s what major tech leaders are doing.
It’s like a new episode of “Billionaires Make Bank”, with giants like Zuckerberg and Bezos participating in a stock-selling bonanza.
It’s true that they’re only selling tiny slivers of their empires and while it’s not unusual for tech elite to unload some stock in the early months of the year, this season's cash-outs has raised quite a few eyebrows.
Big Names and Bigger Bank Accounts
It is believed that with the stock market hitting euphoric highs, these corporate insiders are selling off their shares like they're going out of style, possibly hinting that the party in Tech Town might be winding down.
Peter Thiel waved goodbye to $175M in Palantir shares.
Jeff Bezos, parted ways with $8.5B worth of Amazon shares
Andy Jassy, Bezos’ CEO successor has sold about $21M worth of shares
Mark Zuckerberg, cashed out $135M of his company's stock
A Subtle Hint or a Wake Up Call?
Analysts are suggesting that this mass exodus of tech stocks might be a signal for the rest of us mere mortals to pay attention to. They’re wondering whether this is the tech elite's way of saying the bull party might be winding down.
What’s your current sentiment?
Bull or Bear?
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