The new TV-based games feel right.
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Boggle has become a spectator sport in my household. Everyone crowds around the TV while one of us plays, and the crowd either helps shout out words or waits patiently for their turn. There’s a lot of yelling. But it’s a game that my family can hop into easily, and once someone starts playing, it seems everyone slowly drifts into the room to join in. The surprising part is that the experience is happening entirely through Netflix.
The streaming giant has been trying to crack gaming for half a decade now, and outside of a few rare hits like Grand Theft Auto and Squid Game: Unleashed, it hasn’t made much of a dent. But with its relatively new TV games, which launched last year and include the likes of Boggle as well as party games based on everything from Lego to Knives Out, Netflix may have finally figured out gaming that makes sense for the service. You don’t even need controllers: Each player just uses their own smartphone.
