Netflix Closes Its Mobile Squid Game Studio

On Friday, they were LinkedIn tweets and posts from employees thats reveals that Boss Fight Entertainment, the company behind the mobile game Squid Game: Unleashed, has been shut down by Netflix.

Boss Fight was bought by Netflix in March 2022. According to an official at the time, the studio’s “extensive experience building hit games across genres will help accelerate our ability to provide Netflix members with great games wherever they want to play them.” Squid Game: Unleashed was the “#1 Free Action Game in 107 countries upon release,” and the company has often praised its success. During this week’s earnings call, co-CEO Greg Peters cited Unleashed as an example of the kinds of narrative games based on its own franchises that it hopes to produce more of.

The studio closure coincides with Netflix’s ongoing gaming strategy adjustments under new president Alain Tascan, who joined the business in July 2024. Since its launch in November 2021, the games division has shifted its attention to party games (many of which will be released this holiday season), narrative games, mainstream games, kids’ games, and games that are played directly on TVs rather than mostly mobile titles.

However, Boss Fight was shut down more than three years after the acquisition and significant adjustments to Netflix’s gaming strategy. Netflix chose not to respond.

Boss Fight co-founder and former CEO David Rippy commented, “Hey everyone, word has gotten around quickly about Boss Fight’s closure.” “We appreciate everyone who got in touch today. It’s very sad news, but I’m thankful for our time together at Netflix.

David Luehmann, a director of game development at Boss Fight, also wrote and shared a post that the studio was closing after more than ten fantastic years of operation, the last few of which were spent as part of Netflix. He said that he is incredibly proud of everyone he had worked with, the games we have launched, and the individuals we have met. He wish everyone could see what the team were preparing!

The closure comes after the industry saw a number of layoffs, including Funcom, the creator of Dune: Awakening, which was fired despite the game’s success, and Cloud Chamber, the studio working on the next BioShock game.

Netflix shut down its AAA game company last year before a single game was ever released. Party games that you can play on your TV with your phone as a controller are the subject of Netflix’s upcoming major gaming project. Peters stated this week that the firm is “judiciously” branching out into interactive experiences.

The action was taken over four years after Netflix’s gaming effort was introduced. Netflix Co-CEO Greg Peters was asked to rate the company’s performance in gaming so far during an appearance at the Bloomberg Screentime event this month, and he gave it a B-. Peters’ participation was accompanied by the announcement of a number of new group-playing games from the firm, such as Tetris Time Warp, Lego Party, Pictionary: Game Night, and Boggle Party. Gaming has also been incorporated by the corporation to the main TV interface of the streaming service.

The trend towards less expensive casual games based on well-known IP from the streaming service has been spearheaded by Alain Tascan, who took over as Netflix’s president of games last year.

The VP of Games Technology and Portfolio Development Jeet Shroff and Tascan met with reporters at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last April to discuss their approach.

Tascan stated, “We are dedicated to this journey, even though I know it’s only the beginning.” “We are rapidly approaching the Netflix of games, but we are not yet there yet.”