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After receiving negative feedback from parents, Netflix has decided to abandon its plan to gamify children’s shows. Under the new system, which the streaming platform began testing last week, children would receive “patches” for watching certain episodes of Netflix Original shows. Because kids couldn’t redeem the patches for any additional content or a tangible prize, many users felt that it falsely incentivized children to binge watch TV and forgo other activities.
For users who had access to the tested feature, shows eligible for patches were marked with red locks. Generally, the service included the locks on kid-friendly programs, including A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Magic School Bus Rides Again, and Trollhunters.
On Wednesday, Netflix explained their decision to stop testing the gamified feature to The Verge: “We’ve concluded the test for patches and have decided not to move forward with the feature for kids. We test lots of things at Netflix in order to learn what works well — and what doesn’t work well — for our members.”
From the beginning, parents were critical of what many felt was an “ethically dubious” pilot program designed to get kids hooked to TV — but only Netflix Originals. “As if getting my son to stop watching Netflix wasn’t hard enough,” wrote one user on Twitter. Another mom expressed her exasperation, writing that Netflix’s useless patch system is “totally working considering we’ve watched all 6 episodes of Trolls at least 3 times today.” I don’t have kids, but I can’t imagine that watching 18 episodes of Trolls in one day is good for anyone’s sanity, both parent and child.
Originally, Netflix promised that the patch system would be “a more interactive experience and to expand the storytelling world for the show,” but clearly, the feature is a little too interactive. Sure, it’s obvious that Netflix’s #1 priority is its bottom line, but when all is said and done, it’s nice to know that people can still make a difference by expressing concerns about an ill-conceived program.
