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Netflix have bought Cozy Grove and Alphabear developers Spry FoxSpry Flix

Spry Flix

Streaming service Netflix have acquired Spry Fox, the developers ofAlphabearandCozy Grove. Spry Fox say that all their existing games will remain available on their current platforms and the studio are continuing to work on Cozy Grove 2 and “a larger, non-violent MMO.”

In theirpost announcing the acquisition, Spry Fox’s David Edery writes that the studio will “continue making the games that we were already making and wanted to make, but with more support and resources to make those games better and bring them to more people around the world.”

Cozy Grove launch trailerWatch on YouTube

Cozy Grove launch trailer

Cover image for YouTube video

Edery also writes that Spry Fox can “stop stressing about how our games generate profit on our games and instead focus exclusively on making them as enjoyable and fulfilling to our players as possible.” Because Netflix is a charity that just loves joy, I guess.

Spry Fox is Netflix’s sixth in-house games studio, a collection that also includes the recently acquiredOxenfreedeveloper Night School.

Netflix sees video games as a threat because if people are playing games then they’re not watching television. It also sees them as a way of diverisfying their business in light of subscriber numbers (and the company’s share price) declining in 2022 after years of growth.

The acquisition of Spry Fox also forms part of a recent trend of games industry consolidation, which sometimes goes wrong, as in the case ofEmbracer’s recent acquisition and near-immediate closure of Hitman Go’s developers.