2026 is a year of change for Jackbox Games.
Since releasing the first Jackbox Party Pack in 2014, Jackbox has made its name within the gaming community as a developer and purveyor of party games, bundling titles like Quiplash and Drawful into a series of eleven Party Packs whose most recent installment came out in October 2025.
This year, Jackbox is looking to disrupt its successful formula. The Chicago-based studio is moving beyond Party Packs to publish third-party titles like Toot Games’ My Arms Are Longer Now. Later this year, Jackbox plans to publish Trivia Murder Party 3, the first standalone version of a popular Party Pack title. And in April, Jackbox announced a partnership with Netflix to serve three Jackbox titles on Netflix’s CTV gaming platform. (Don’t worry, Party Pack fans — the twelfth edition of the series is still in development and slated for a release this fall.)
To better understand why and how Jackbox is shifting its strategy in 2026, GamesBeat spoke to Jackbox chief executive officer Mike Bilder and vice president of business development Andy Kniaz. Here are some of the key takeaways.
Publishing is both a growth strategy and a way to support indie developers
Kniaz framed Jackbox’s move into publishing as a natural extension of the company’s infrastructure, flagging the presence of Party Packs across 12 major gaming platforms. The Jackbox executives noted the increasingly challenging environment for independent game developers in 2026, with Bilder describing the publishing move as an “olive branch” for indie developers who had found it difficult to find a publisher or secure funding.
“There aren’t many indie developers that have the platform reach that we have,” Kniaz said. “We have great production discipline, we have marketing and community systems in place, and we have a culture that understands what developing a game is.”
Beyond the benefits for indie developers, Bilder described moving into publishing is a logical move to help support Jackbox’s expansion, with the company able to assign members of its growing team to publishing instead of simultaneously developing multiple Party Packs that could risk cannibalizing its audience. He told GamesBeat that Jackbox was planning to focus on publishing games that provided different gameplay experiences than Jackbox’s usual phone-and-TV party games.
“We do want to grow as a company and do more, and we don’t want to do it in a way that hurts ourselves, but do it in a way that amplifies and accentuates things — appeals to the audience we’ve already got, and the goodwill that we already have with that audience,” Bilder said. “And so we’re looking for titles that fit into that mix.”
The Netflix deal is exciting — but not the endgame
Licensing deals with Netflix and other streaming or media platforms have been a source of significant revenue growth for some gaming companies in 2026. Bilder described Jackbox’s partnership with Netflix as similar to its relationships with other platform owners like Sony and Microsoft, rather than a seismic shift in strategy for the company.
“At a high level, it’s just a new platform for our games,” he said.
Instead of viewing Netflix as a final destination for gamers interested in consuming Jackbox content, Kniaz said that Jackbox views Netflix as a sampling layer, allowing players to dip their toes into Jackbox games before diving deeper into the company’s portfolio.
“We look at that [CTV] audience as a somewhat untapped, green-field audience of very casual consumers, who don’t have hardware or consider themselves gamers, but do interact with apps on smart TV,” Bilder said.
Jackbox plans to launch its own streaming service later this year
Jackbox’s relationships with streaming platforms like Netflix are laddering up to the launch of the company’s own homegrown streaming service. Jackbox intends for this streaming service to be the final destination for casual CTV players interested in the company’s games, with the goal of launching a dedicated CTV app later this year.
“The intention would be that there’s a Jackbox app on smart TVs that would allow users to play games, add backed games for free, or subscribe and get access to the entirety of the catalog,” Bilder said.
Steady audience demographics mean stability
Bilder said that the demographics of Jackbox’s core audience have “really not changed” since the company launched its first Party Pack in 2014.
“You would think that some people would age out or age in, and it seems like that core demo is just holding strong for us,” he said.
The stability of Jackbox’s core demographic is one factor that has contributed to the company’s consistent growth amid a period that has not always been steady for the broader gaming industry. The company has doubled in size over the past five years and currently boasts a head count of 90, with Jackbox making hires across all facets of the company to support its growth. Jackbox has developed 62 unique titles across 27 products, and offers localized titles in languages like French, German, and Spanish.
“Part of our goal is to expand our offering to more people and grow through volume, rather than continually doing price hikes to try and offset increasing spend. Obviously, our costs as a company increase as inflation increases, wages increase, and all those things, and it’s partially why we have some of these diversification plays,” Bilder said. “Let’s add more products to our product line; let’s get publishing involved and do some third-party games. These are ways for the company to grow and offer more to consumers, but not just price gouge.”