Across all platforms, Warner Bros's 2D platform free-to-play fighter has amassed over ten million players since entering open beta on July 26.

Is that impressive? Possibly.

Without any purchase free-to-play titles get a lot of people at least trying it.

That costs nothing but your own time and is one of the key strengths of the free-to-play model.

How many people are actually playing it.?

Right now it's the ninth most played game on Steam.

Even accounting for this being a relatively new game and possibly lacking staying power, that's impressive.

As we reported, Warner Bros. recently delayed the game's full launch and we suspect that's them potentially rethinking monetisation.

The general consensus seems to be that the game is fun but that its cash shop is too brutal.

One factor which we hadn't considered but which Warner Bros. must is Netflix.

They've long been promising to get into games in a big way but haven't enjoyed much success.

Having launched their first five games in November 2021, across their entire catalogue Netflix's total games downloads only add up to 23.3 million, which may include the same users downloading games more than once.

MultiVersus reached around half that in just three weeks with a very simple game.

There's a real risk that competitors like Netflix could easily make a similar game and Netflix have committed to their games being free from microtransactions.

MultiVersus is available now in open beta on PC, Xbox and PlayStation.

[ Main Image: MultiVersus. Credit: Warner Bros. via Steam. ]

References

BBC News (November 2, 2021). Netflix launches first games on smartphones. BBC.

Steam. MultiVersus. Warner Bros. Games. (viewed August 11, 2022)

SteamDB. Database of everything on Steam. (viewed August 11, 2022)

Stebbins, Jack (August 6, 2022). Netflix is expanding its push into video games, but few subscribers are playing along. CNBC.

Taylor, Mollie (August 9, 2022). MultiVersus smashes 10 million player milestone in just 3 weeks. PC Gamer.