Crunchyroll follows in Netflix footsteps, offering games on top of anime
The next Netflix of games?
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Crunchyroll, the anime streaming service, announced yesterday that it will now be offering games at certain subscription tiers.
Announced over on Crunchyroll's own website, the Crunchyroll Game Vault is a newly opened library of games you can play, added on top of all the anime you can watch through the service. The Game Vault won't be available to all members though, as it starts at the Mega Fan tiers, which costs £5.99/$9.99 a month, and is also available through the US only subscription tier Ultimate Fan, which is $14.99 a month. According to Crunchyroll, the Game Vault will be a "constantly growing library of mobile games," and is already available on Android, with iOS devices getting it "very soon in more than 200 countries, all playable with no ads and no in-app purchases."
To start, the service will include River City Girls, Wolfstride, Inbento, Captain Velvet: The Jump+ Dimensions, and Behind the Frame, so a nice little selection of indie games. Quite clearly they're also leaning more towards those anime vibes, as while they're not all Japanese-developed, they're all clearly inspired by Japanese media in some shape or form.
It should also be noted that in a press release Crunchyroll said that "some of our features will be released incrementally to ensure stability. Not all users may receive all Crunchyroll Game Vault updates and access to Crunchyroll Game Vault titles simultaneously." So if you're a subscriber at the relevant tier and can't access the Game Vault just yet, just give it a bit of time.
Gaming is quite clearly a market film and TV streaming services want to crack, as Netflix has obviously been attempting to do the exact same thing as Crunchyroll for the past couple of years - and there are even some really good games on there. While the figure is a year old, it was reported last year that less than 1% of Netflix subscribers play its games daily, though, so it will be interesting to see how much success Crunchyroll has.