Since the beginning of 2023, NetEase has been rapidly announcing new studios, averaging one per month. These have either been established internally, or acquired. - It acquired SkyBox Labs (Canadian games studio) in January - It announced Spliced in February (a global remote-first studio with offices in the UK, but employees in US, Canada, UK, and ‘beyond’) - It took a short break in March but announced two new studios in May - In April, it announced Anchor Point Studios (based in Spain) - In May, it announced Bad Brain Studios (based in Canada) - Most recently announced PinCool Inc (based in Japan) The cadence of these announcements has positioned NetEase as one of the world’s most active companies in terms of 2023 studio expansion.

Netflix finds itself at yet another inflection point as it rolls out its paid sharing plan in the US. With a saturated domestic market (32% of paid members in Q1 2023 were from North America), finding additional subscribers means pushing subscription dodgers onto the recently launched basic with ads tier (note that this equates to the monthly subscription cost of Disney+ when it launched as an ad-free service in 2019).