Like Netflix, YouTube Offers a Confused Attempt at Diversification

YouTube is no stranger to experimentation but its new Playables product seems to have gotten things wrong from the start. Can it walk the same path that Netflix is trying to excel in?

Blockbuster

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, entertainment was a simple affair, an almost entirely physical medium that had us rooted to a single device. VHS, vinyl, and cassette tapes made up the bulk of any Friday night schedule.

The closure of the companies that created this analog dream, like Blockbuster, seems to have damaged the very fabric of anyone who lived in those times.

Nostalgia can be bewildering, though. For all the sensory aspects that Blockbuster provided, it lacked convenience, something that modern streaming platforms have in lumps. Accessing shows from the distant past with the tap of a screen is a kind of magic that perhaps isn’t quite appreciated enough.

Oddly, with increasing distance from the stained blue carpets of video stores, entertainment has become (almost) immovable once again. We can easily watch our stories on the go but the internet usually keeps us close to our routers.

Diversification

This does offer a boon for businesses, especially as media giants continue to venture into other parts of entertainment. After all, why operate a TV company when you can branch out into movies, too? It's a means of capturing new audiences without expending too much out of their expertise.

YouTube is emulating this model with its Playables feature, which adds short-form games to its Premium package. The Google-owned site seems to be trying to emulate rival Netflix, which has made several attempts to break the interactive media market in recent years.

Debuting a gaming section in November 2021, Netflix has also added a handful of choose-your-own-adventure style TV shows, like Black Mirror: Bandersnatch.

Netflix’s arcade is found within its app, a structure that is familiar to fans of casino-style entertainment. This ever-updated catalog plays second fiddle to its primary business, just like slots to table and card games.

YouTube seems to have opted for an arcade similar to that of a casino, at least in terms of its pick-up-and-play nature. Just as the NJ casino online app for PlayStar offers quick rounds in games like Starburst, YouTube’s Playables are playable in a flash.

Scooter Xtreme

Playables are hidden deep inside the YouTube app, so deep that they’re "almost impossible to find”, to quote the Guardian. They include a bunch of titles like Scooter Xtreme, which originally comes from a site purveying bite-sized apps, GameSnacks.

In the latter form, Scooter Xtreme is salvageable for a moment’s fun. With touch controls and set behind the $13.99 fee of YouTube Premium, it’s more of an insult to the company’s subscribers, especially as Premium has limited value as it is.

YouTube Playables does have potential, just like any other arcade out there. For every attempt of fun on Kongregate or itch.io, there's always a diamond buried somewhere in the rough.

Playables are only available until March, too, which makes the platform seem more like an experiment than a true launch. It remains to be seen whether YouTube can polish this piece of coal into something worth the price tag.