The telephone rings. It’s a full ring that interrupts, not a notification. However, the call isn’t specifically for you. It’s for Zoë Kravitz’s character, Ava, in Netflix’s Unhinged, who requires your phone to survive a Category 5 cyclone while stuck in her apartment. The phone itself. The same one perched on the cushion of your couch. A few minutes ago, you scanned a QR code on your TV, and suddenly the gadget is a controller, a flashlight, and a lifeline in someone else’s crisis. The distinction between watching and playing has subtly vanished.
Netflix is investing in that particular feeling, which is the collapse of the fourth wall through a personal gadget. Unhinged is more of a test of whether the streamer can get its subscriber base to transcend a threshold they’ve previously resisted than it is a video game in the conventional sense. For a number of years, Netflix has been developing a gaming business by purchasing studios and producing games that are mainly ignored by users who signed up to watch rather than play. Unhinged is the result of a strategy modification that was necessary due to the dismal game engagement numbers.
The intentional design choices are targeted at a particular type of user, such as someone who will watch three hours of TV on a Tuesday night yet identifies as “not a gamer.” The duration of the game is less than forty-five minutes. There are two modes: a conventional mode that applies pressure to those who choose it, and a mode that completely eliminates clocks and death stages, treating the experience like a movie you chance to interact with. Beyond scanning QR codes, there is no learning curve for the smartphone controller. By design, there is virtually no barrier to entry.
Oxenfree, a dialogue-heavy supernatural adventure that was already more akin to interactive television than a traditional game, was created by Night School Studio, the company behind Unhinged. In 2021, Netflix became the first firm to purchase a game studio when it acquired Night School. At the time, the acquisition made more sense as a signal than as a content strategy. The acquisition was aiming for an unhinged content strategy.
Sadie Sink and Zoë Kravitz are here for a specific purpose. They are movie and television celebrities whose presence conveys that you don’t need to be a gamer to enjoy this game; they are not voice actors in the conventional meaning of the word. The other way is bridged by Troy Baker, who has provided the voice of protagonists in some of the most highly acclaimed video games of the last ten years. In order to address all audiences where they are, the casting is a purposeful blend.
The more general claim made by Netflix is that short-form digital entertainment is outpacing video games, a claim made publicly by Matt Ball of Xbox, and that the best way to counter this is to create something that doesn’t feel like a game at all rather than compete with Sony or Microsoft. A 45-minute terrifying experience with your phone vibrating in your hand and Zoë Kravitz’s voice in your ear is more akin to a podcast or short film than anything you’d find in the PlayStation store. Netflix is investing money to find out if such reframing is sufficient to genuinely change subscriber behavior.
