Netflix Acquires Cozy Games Developer Spry Fox

Netflix is getting a lot more active in game development with the acquisition of Spry Fox.

November 2022 marks the 1st anniversary of Netflix's foray into the gaming industry with Netflix Games. To celebrate the occasion, Netflix has announced they've acquired Spry Fox. 

We have some very big news! https://t.co/37eq5FSmrw pic.twitter.com/eT9IVu5ayn

— Spry Fox (@spryfox) October 31, 2022

Founded in 2010 and based in Seattle, Spry Fox is an award-winning independent game studio with a unique catalog of games. They have a strong background in Puzzle titles like Triple Town, Road Not Taken, and Alpha Bear 1 and 2. But they've branched out into other genres with the action title Bushido Bear and life-sim Cozy Grove.

In a blog post announcing the news, Spry Fox stated that Netflix would aid their game development endeavors in numerous ways. With the backing and support of a gigantic company like Netflix, Spry Fox has more room to let their creativity run wild and go all out on their future titles. 

They can spend less time focusing on how their games will generate money and more on how they can make their games more enjoyable for players. And that's a sentiment that's more than welcome. Countless games don't live up to their potential because some companies focus too much on making money and too little on making a good game. 

Netflix seems to have similar ideas in mind. In the blog post announcing the acquisition of Spry Fox, Netflix stated that the games developed by their in-house studios would have no ads and no in-app purchases. Their games will be stellar gaming experiences available to Netflix's members as another perk of Netflix membership.

With Netflix's flagship streaming service losing over a million subscribers earlier this year, implementing more membership benefits is a wise decision.  

Spry Fox has been busy in the last year. In October 2021, Epic Games announced a partnership with Spry Fox for a cross-platform, non-violent MMO. In June, Spry Fox announced it was working on Cozy Grove 2. 

Spry Fox is Netflix's sixth in-house studio. It joins Boss Fight Entertainment, Night School Studio, and Next Games as a member of the Netflix Gaming family. 

Netflix has also recently announced the startup of two in-house studios, one in Southern California and one in Helsinki, Finland. Former Blizzard Exec and Overwatch Executive Producer Chacko Sonny will lead the California Studio, and former EA and Zynga Exec Marko Lastikka will head the Finland studio. 

They will be branching out into every avenue of gaming, including VR and Cloud Gaming. But with the shutdown of Google Stadia earlier this year after failing to achieve mass success, they might want to de-prioritize the latter. 

Netflix currently has 35 titles in its lineup and has stated they intend to increase that number to 50 by the end of the year.