Editorial: Netflix has low standards

 

It's no big news story to many that Netflix has become one of the dominant names in the entertainment industry. It helped usher in the era of streaming, it features many originals and has been the home for many movies and shows that could not, or would not, be put into theatres or on TV. Netflix has pretty much replaced cable for many people and has a wide selection of shows, movies and specials. Quite frankly, Netflix is to movies and TV as Steam is to gaming... and there in lies the problem.

For those of you who aren't big into gaming, Steam is an online distribution platform run by video game company Valve, and is host to many games ranging from the Triple A titles to the small indie developers. It has been host to many games like The Stanley Parable, Ark: Survival Evolved and other well known indie titles. It has also been the home of such games as The Slaughtering Grounds, a first-person shooter that used prebuilt assets to cobble together a barely functioning game made by developers who tried to sue a Youtuber for libel and defamation because they didn't think his coverage of their game was fair. Steam was also the home of Day One: Gary's Incident, Air Control, Operation: Caucasus, Fur Fun and so many other badly made games made by egomaniac developers with easily damaged pride. Steam has become a dumpster fire of a service because of it's low standards and lack of will to police their storefront, and if you want more about that topic, just go to YouTube and type in "Jim Sterling Steam", you'll get enough videos to fill you in. Jim Sterling was the YouTuber that the developers of The Slaughtering Grounds tried to sue by the way.

I mention all of that because, much like Steam, Netflix seems to having similar issues. Netflix, has low standards when it comes to what they call a "Netflix Original", giving that title to anything that might give them an edge over other streaming services no matter how dreadful.

While Steam has had their titles like Air Control, or Day One: Gary's Incident, or anything published by Digital Homicide or any of the endless asset flippers who try to sell base games as their own work (Cough UnitZ Cough), and to suggest that Netflix has titles similar to that level of quality is... honestly kind of accurate.

What does Netflix have as an original from this year? Well, they have released Animal Crackers; a movie that, God bless everyone who worked on it, really, but desperately needed a rewrite.

They released The Larva Island Movie; A painful kid's movie with lousy animation and predictable jokes and situation outcomes.

They released Pets United; which I think is a generic kids movie that showcases just how low the standards Netflix has are.

They released Fe@rLeSS_; the latest turd given to us by Vanguard Entertainment, which if you anything about that studio you would know not to be proud of having their movies on your service.

Oh yeah, they also released Cuties; a movie that gained a lot of controversy because of it's subject matter which was not advertised as a commentary.

Before 2020, they released stinkers like Duck Duck Goose, Gnome Alone (Another Vanguard disaster) and Next Gen which was not a good movie so don't @ me!

Yes, they did release Klaus, which was a good movie, and they did release The Willoughbys which... I didn't really like, but it seems people enjoyed it so... However, Steam also had good games, a lot of good games, but we're not talking about those good games because Steam has a reputation of being overly generous to bad game developers. Now, I'm not saying Netflix is as bad as Steam is, Netflix hasn't decided to allow just any independent creator pick a company name and upload a movie onto their service, however, that doesn't mean Netflix isn't getting there.

At the very least, Valve doesn't seem to encourage games like The Slaughtering Grounds or Day One: Gary's Incident beyond just letting them take up shelf space on their store. They don't advertise them, they don't mark them as "Steam Originals" and they don't even seem to be really proud of them, they just have them on their service. So, maybe comparing Netflix to Steam isn't really apt, it may be more apt to compare them to Sony.

The PlayStation 4 Storefront is a mess of games that, just like Steam, are made by developers with little talent or effort and just take away views from good and more promising games. Games like Life of Black Tiger, Flowers Are Dead, Cat-lateral Damage, and Skylight Freerange 2 Gachduine (No I did not make that one up) are not only on the PS4 storefront, but also advertised on the official PlayStation YouTube Channel, meaning that Sony is proud in some capacity to have these games on their service. In a similar way, Netflix has branded movies like Cuties, like Pets United, like Duck Duck Goose and whatever Vanguard put up as "Netflix Originals", again, meaning that in some capacity, Netflix is proud to host these.

Now, I am not saying that Netflix is going to become as bad as Steam or the PS4 Storefront, it really does seem like Netflix won't let any random nobody make a movie or show for them. However, so far, it really does seem like they are already the Steam of the Streaming Services. They have a lot of good stuff but some really bad stuff they are pretty much exclusive too, they don't seem to really care about the quality of what is on the service, and the only thing that makes them not like Steam is that they actually seem proud to host a movie like Cuties or Gnome Alone. Yes, they have The Witcher, they have She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, they have Glitch Techs, and Steam has Ark: Survival Evolved, Team Fortress 2 and Passpartout, that doesn't change the games they have let pollute their storefront.

Netflix is going down a path that, if they are not careful, will lead them directly to the same end result as Steam, once a well-beloved and sacred storefront, now a punchline and one of the last places actual people making games want to end up in. If Netflix continues to put the "Netflix Originals" name on crap movies, they will be in the same place, a punchline to many people who are making their own movies, I can already hear someone saying "I'm going to put my movie on Netflix, and than I'm going to release it to the public" or something like that, and I don't want that, nobody wants that. Nobody wanted that for Steam, but that is what Steam is now, and they really only have themselves to blame.