Netflix Whiffed: The New Frustrating Feature I Absolutely Hate

Last month, I stumbled upon a relatively new Netflix feature that immediately caught my attention. It made me genuinely excited, but it quickly became my least favorite thing about the platform — other than maybe Netflix's ever-increasing fees. This feature doesn't have anything to do with watching movies or TV — instead, it's part of Netflix's under-the-radar Games service.

I remember Netflix announcing it was getting into gaming a few years back and I've used the app interactively before, like when "Black Mirror" had that choose-your-own-adventure episode, "Bandersnatch." But, I didn't realize that you could stream games on your TV directly through the app, similar to how you can on Xbox without needing to download anything. You don't need any special hardware to play these in-app games, though I had to download an app to use my smartphone as the controller.

One of the available games — the thing that got me so excited — was "Tetris Time Warp." Netflix's slightly reimagined version of the iconic puzzle game is pretty much standard "Tetris" — but one that you can boot up the same way you would an old rerun of "The Office." I've been playing "Tetris" for nearly 40 years, since it came packaged with my Nintendo Game Boy. I've logged countless hours through all kinds of ports and spin-offs on all kinds of platforms. I wouldn't say I'm obsessed with the game or anything — well, I wasn't before the best game of 2018, "Tetris Effect," launched (but that's a whole other story). For me, "Tetris" is a quick, fun way to pass the time, which kind of makes it perfect for Netflix. Unfortunately, one tiny aspect of its control layout — the one on your smartphone — pretty much breaks the game completely.

I've been subscribed to Netflix for over two decades and was one of the company's earliest streamers. I was actually streaming before you could do so on your TV using a dedicated Roku box, which was when Netflix really exploded into a cultural phenomenon. Back in the DVD-by-mail days, there was an at-that-time little-known, little-used feature that came free with Netflix's DVD-by-mail subscription — the ability to stream certain titles on your computer's browser, then called Netflix Instant Watch.

Cord-cutting wasn't quite a thing yet, so the ability to stream full movies on your laptop didn't make too many waves beyond early adopters. That's funny to me, because you can pretty much say the same thing about Netflix's push into gaming. The company has offered games for a few years now, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's news to you, because it hasn't done a great job of pushing the feature into the mainstream. I came across "Tetris" in a roundabout way after watching the latest entry in Netflix's "Knives Out" series, "Wake Up Dead Man." 

Instead of suggesting another similar movie as the credits rolled, Netflix — through an excellent use of corporate synergy — instead recommended a tie-in party game called "Dead Man's Party: A Knives Out Game." This was how I, a dedicated gamer and Netflix user, accidentally found out you could play video games through the app. The company really needs to market the feature better, but only after they fix the control layout for "Tetris." In all my years of using Netflix, I've never encountered such a frustrating feature — one that made me give up on using the company's gaming platform altogether, less than 48 hours after discovering it.

Since your smartphone is the controller for Netflix's in-app games, the issue isn't with any hardware. The smartphone itself pairs effortlessly with the app and the lag is undetectable during play. That's obviously important for "Tetris," which involves rotating, moving, and dropping blocks before they reach the top of the screen. This is especially the case in later levels when the game is moving at a lightning-fast pace.

The controller for "Tetris" has a simple layout with four arrow keys and a few face and menu buttons. The way these buttons are arranged depends on if you want to hold the phone horizontally or in portrait mode. I'm old school and need to use the traditional landscape layout. The controls are mapped, for the most part, with the right buttons — except for one. For some insane reason, the Up Arrow is used to instantly drop a block, which can be useful during the game, but why you need to press Up to make blocks go straight down is certainly a choice.

The real issue, though, is that the hard drop button is right next to the Left and Right Arrow keys used to move a block into place. Without the texture of a physical controller, it's too easy for your finger to hit two buttons at the same time and drop a block early and into the wrong place. It's easy to do this repeatedly, piling the blocks straight to the top. It's an unavoidable design flaw, unless you want your hands and fingers to be incredibly strained. After several unnecessary losses because of this frustrating control layout, I gave up on the game altogether.

In the classic Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, "The Princess and the Pea," the title princess can't sleep comfortably because she can feel a tiny pea underneath twenty plush mattresses. I can relate, because I fully acknowledge that I'm nitpicking here. For the most part, "Tetris Time Warp" is a solid — though nothing special — take on the classic puzzle game. Literally the only issue I have is the placement of this one button for this one control, one you could arguably play without.

But the Drop button is my pea. I feel it the entire time I'm playing, through twenty mattresses of colorful blocks (technically called tetrominoes). How can I enjoy playing a game if it's constantly ending prematurely because of misplaced blocks? Like a bad line of code, this one, tiny problem is a complete showstopper, breaking the game for me and rendering it completely unplayable. I won't — or can't, really — play Netflix's "Tetris" again until it's fixed.

This tiny flaw may end up a big one for Netflix, though. It kind of turned me off from their entire gaming platform in general. That's a shame, since it's such a good idea. Using smartphones as controllers, with the TV as the virtual "board," is such a clever way to play games with family and friends. It's the same system ingeniously employed by Jackbox Games for titles like "Quiplash" and "Blather 'Round." Having games with this format directly available in the Netflix app opens it up to an incredibly wide audience — I can imagine getting everyone at my Dad's house hopping into a party game after Thanksgiving dinner. At least, this could be the case if not for one other big issue.

The "Tetris" controller fail is a specific problem for Netflix, but there is a much broader issue with its gaming platform that I think is keeping it from becoming a mainstream hit with subscribers. There just aren't many games to play. Netflix launched this in-app "Netflix TV Party Games" feature a few months ago, though it had been beta testing it for over a year. Yet, with all this lead time, its roster of launch titles is still extremely thin — just five games, plus the new "Knives Out" one.

The other party games are solid and include "Boggle," "Lego Party!", and "Pictionary," but the platform needs a more robust lineup. Its "Party Crashers" is the most Jackbox-like of its games — and the platform should lean more into that format. It would be amazing if the company worked out a licensing deal for heavy hitters like "Bomb Corp." and "Quiplash." Netflix Party Games needs quantity AND quality to really take off.  

There are actually a ton of games listed on Netflix's gaming menu — but this is incredibly misleading. Most of these so-called Netflix games are just ones you can play only on your smartphone as part of your paid subscription. It's no different than Apple's new Games app. I don't need more options when it comes to games on my phone — I need more when it comes to party games I can play on my TV, with my friends, using our smartphones. That's second on my wish list, though. First and foremost, I need Netflix to get this damn pea from under my back and fix the Hard Drop button for "Tetris Time Warp."