Insight: Netflix’s Adult Animation Strategy Featuring Video Game Adaptations Is Working

It seems like yesterday that we were all up in arms about Netflix’s wave of adult animation cancellations. Admittedly, I’m still a little miffed about no second season of Inside Job, but most of the kids and TV-Y7 stuff I can do without and judging from these new rankings, Netflix seems to have made the right call in leaning into video game adaptations for their adult animation strategy.

Note this graph that ranks the most critically-acclaimed video game adaptations. Out of 15 video game adaptations that are the most critically-acclaimed, we’ve highlighted the over 30% of titles that are adult animation excluding other categories like live-action series, feature film adaptations, and kids animation. Moreover, note that Arcane: League of Legends is tops which explains all of the Emmys the series has won over the years.

This seems to indicate that Netflix’s strategy of producing adult animation inspired by games is working from a critical standpoint. Note that most of Netflix’s subscriptions come by way of some sort of gaming console, so to feature a strategy where gaming IP can be leveraged to get the eyeballs that might be playing one of these huge MOBA IP’s like Arcane and Dota, it makes sense. Moreover, the streamer isn’t stopping anytime soon with teases just a few weeks ago of new adult animation inspired by games including Tomb Raider, Devil May Cry, Far Out, and more all on the way to go along with a second season of Arcane which is slated to premiere November 2024.

The other streamers are lagging behind Netflix in total subscriptions. Maybe a few of them should take a page out of Netflix and start looking at adult animation inspired by gaming franchises as they seem to bring critical acclaim, and most importantly, revenue.