How tech companies keep their users on their platforms. – Media

For a long time, virtual reality was a largely unfulfilled promise, but now it is more than just guessing which worlds will one day be available for escape when the first and real one continues to darken outside the door. A small test flight in the living room with the VR glasses Quest 2 from Oculus, on which these substitute worlds are only a few awkward arm movements away from each other, to the great amusement of a friend sitting around.

With one in the living room, Darth Vader from “Star Wars” and an entourage of stormtroopers, all virtual licensed goods, are soon standing huge and breathing hard. It looks real enough to at least give you a little scare. Vader doesn’t come to have coffee. Wipe and move on: A badly shaved prize boxer is facing you, three laps and a few chin hooks later you are still in the living room, but sweating as if after a committed middle-distance run.

Swipe and on: Netflix, relaxation. But even here VR has potential. You don’t look at him anymore first screen in the too narrow, too dark, city apartment threatened by speculation and market hunt. No, you can move into an alpine chalet with the VR glasses, generously proportioned. Outside the mountains rest at night, inside heavy lamps, heavy stones, in between a virtual large-screen TV with the glowing Netflix logo. Ba-dam.

For the step into the world of gaming, Netflix treats itself to a new vice president who knows how to retain customers

Do you even want to leave? At Netflix, streaming and gaming have been merging for years: where Amazon Prime Video relies on film adaptations (because you can then order the books on Amazon right away), Netflix relies on film adaptations of computer games. The most successful so far has been “The Witcher”, which is based on a Polish fantasy book series, but became known internationally through the game “The Witcher 3”.

For this step into the world of gaming, the company is even treating itself to a new Vice President, namely the game developer Mike Verdu, who has already worked at Zynga, among others. This is the company that was responsible for the Facebook game “Farmville”, which tied millions of players to the social network for hours and made them get up in the middle of the night to pick virtual strawberries. That is the idea that has meanwhile led to the VR-Alpen-Chalet with a Netflix subscription. The man knows how to retain customers.

The future of gaming as streaming has been expected for years and no one has perfected streaming technology like Netflix. It is not yet clear how exactly you as a subscriber will then play on Netflix, whether you need new hardware to play, perhaps your own controller. And nobody knows which games should be available. The big manufacturers like Microsoft and Nintendo will not sell their content on Netflix, but rather offer it as a subscription themselves. A problem that the streaming service also has with film studios like Disney, which would rather start their own platform than make something available to Netflix.

The philosopher James Williams identified attention as a currency in digital space

Netflix is ​​reacting to a shift in streaming that has long been emerging. The Twitch platform, which started out as a streaming site for computer games, is now part of Amazon and has long since stopped showing people gambling, but everything from panel discussions to literature readings. That works because the audience can of course not be clearly divided into gamers, readers and film viewers. Most subscribers are interested in various offers. There is competition not only between Netflix and Prime Video, but also between Spotify, the bookshelf and the Xbox. Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, even referred to sleep as a competitor for his company. At the moment, in addition to the insolent need for sleep of his customers, he is probably also concerned with the below-expectations quarterly figures and the high debts that his company has amassed with the strategy of unconditional growth.

The philosopher and former Google employee James Williams identified attention as the new currency in the digital space as early as 2018. From smartphones to streaming services, new technologies are being developed in such a way that they keep users locked in them for as long as possible. Because subscribers alone are no longer enough to pay off billions in debts, they also have to take advantage of the offer, otherwise they’ll cancel sooner or later. With their attention, the customers pay again: Because paying a little attention always means that something else doesn’t get that attention (the family, the dog, the book on the bedside table, the uncleaned kitchen). The digital corporations like that, because time that is invested in their products cannot flow into the products of the competition.

The so-called gamification is the tightening of this strategy, because with nothing you keep the user as captivated as if you let them do something themselves. Netflix has been experimenting with such concepts for a long time. The best-known example is the “Black Mirror” episode “Bandersnatch”, in which viewers can decide in several places how the main character should act. Almost grotesque that the episode is about a young programmer who cannot tear himself away from his computer and who is increasingly losing touch with reality. Like this young man, it’s easy to get paranoid when you consider that these platforms have long since built social aspects into their business model. At Spotify you can now invite friends to listen to music together. And aren’t social networks also a kind of game?

Better to quickly go back under the VR glasses from Oculus, wipe and farther away from Netflix and towards an application that should still cause particular pain and joy. While you are standing in your city apartment, which is too small, you can virtually visit wonderful noble houses and light-flooded fincas via VR that you will never be able to afford in real life. You’d have to be a CEO somewhere for that.