Pokemon Go Halloween 2021: Pumpkaboo, Misunderstood Mischief Research and more

Pokemon Go Halloween 2021: Pumpkaboo, Misunderstood Mischief Research and more

The second leg of Pokemon Go's Halloween 2021 event is coming to an end in a couple of days. Until Oct. 31, certain ghost- and dark-type Pokemon are appearing in the game more frequently than usual, and you have your first chance to get four new ghost Pokemon from the Kalos region. On top of that, the next portion of the Misunderstood Mischief Special Research story is now live, and you'll earn extra candy for catching, transferring and hatching Pokemon. Here's everything you need to know about Pokemon Go's Halloween 2021 event.

New ghost Pokemon

As part of the Halloween event, four new ghost Pokemon have arrived in the game: Phantump, Trevenant, Pumpkaboo, and Gourgeist. All four were originally introduced in Pokemon X and Y for the Nintendo 3DS, making this your first chance to catch them in Pokemon Go.

Alongside Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist, a new size mechanic has been added to the game. Just as in mainline Pokemon titles, Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist can appear in various sizes, and the ones you encounter in Pokemon Go will visibly vary depending on how large or small they are. The game is also holding a new Collection Challenge tasking you with catching a Pumpkaboo of every size.

Featured Pokemon

In addition to the aforementioned new ghosts, the following Pokemon will appear in the wild and in raid battles throughout the Halloween event. The mythical Pokemon Darkrai has also returned to five-star raids, while Mega Absol has made its debut in Mega Raids.

Wild spawns

• Halloween Mischief Pikachu
• Halloween Mischief Piplup
• Gastly
• Haunter
• Murkrow
• Misdreavus
• Shuppet
• Purrloin
• Yamask
• Litwick
• Phantump
• Pumpkaboo

One-star raids

• Murkrow
• Yamask
• Galarian Yamask
• Phantump
• Pumpkaboo

Three-star raids

• Alolan Marowak
• Banette
• Halloween Mischief Drifblim
• Lampent

Five-star raids

Mega Raids

7 km eggs

• Spinarak
• Misdreavus
• Shuppet
• Litwick
• Golett
• Phantump
• Galarian Yamask

Misunderstood Mischief Special Research

Another leg of the season-long Misunderstood Mischief Special Research story is now live in Pokemon Go. You can see the full list of tasks and rewards below.

Stage 11/16

• Earn 3 candies walking with your buddy - 10 Yamask Candy
• Catch 30 ghost-type Pokemon - 10 Phantump Candy
• Catch 30 dark-type Pokemon - 10 Pumpkaboo Candy
• Reward for completing all three tasks: Pikachu encounter, 15 Ultra Balls, 40 Gengar Mega Energy

Other event bonuses

Just as during the first part of the Halloween event, a new Special Research story called What Lies Beneath the Mask? is now live in the game. The following bonuses are also still active;

• 2x transfer candy
• 2x hatch candy
• 2x catch candy
• Guaranteed candy XL when walking with your buddy

Pokemon Go's Halloween 2021 event runs until 8 p.m. local time on Oct. 31. You can read up on everything else happening in the game this month in our Pokemon Go October events roundup.

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Tags:

• Pokemon Go Halloween 2021 Part 2
• Pokemon Go Halloween 2020
• Pokemon Go Halloween 2021 Events
• Pokemon Go Halloween 2022
• Pokemon Go Halloween 2020
• Pokemon Go Halloween Event 2021
• Pokemon Go Halloween 2022
• Pokemon Go Halloween 2021
• Pokemon Go Download
• Pokemon Go Friend Codes

Beyond axie infinity web3 games hope to convert crypto currency beyond axie infinity web3 games hope to convert youtube beyond axie infinity web3 games hope today beyond axie infinity web3 games hope to dream beyond axie infinity web3 games hope to hear beyond axie infinity web3 school beyond axie infinity web3 foundation beyond axie infinity web3 stocks beyond axie infinity marketplace living beyond anxiety moving beyond anxiety beyond anxiety and depression

Beyond Axie Infinity: 'Web3 Games' Hope to Convert Crypto Skeptics

Beyond Axie Infinity: 'Web3 Games' Hope to Convert Crypto Skeptics

The moment Chris saw Axie Infinity, he was hooked. He was once an avid gamer, playing hours of League of Legends every day, but stopped after deciding he was sinking too much time into an unproductive hobby. Axie Infinity promised something different. Inspired by Pokemon, it's a video game about training and battling monsters. That sounds like hundreds of other games, but one element distinguishes Axie Infinity. It's built on the blockchain.

Axies are the Pokemon of Axie Infinity, but they're owned as nonfungible tokens, or NFTs. A cryptocurrency called Smooth Love Potion is earned by battling these Axies. Players can also breed Axies, then either sell or battle with them. Chris, who declined to give his real name and goes only by the pseudonym Cryptobarbarian, felt he could justify playing video games again -- as long as it paid.

"It was fun for the first few weeks, but it gets boring really fast," the 28-year-old said. From there, he said, Axie Infinity became purely about making money.

Axie Infinity is a browser game. Accessing it is free, but you need to buy a team of three Axies to play. At its peak of popularity, bottom-tier Axies cost around $350 each, meaning playing the game once required a four-figure investment. The game allows Axie owners to lease out their monsters to other players, however. A longtime crypto investor, Cryptobarbarian told me he bought $30,000 worth of Axies and loaned them out in return for 40% to 70% of the profits. (CNET wasn't able to verify his purchases.)

The strategy paid off at first. Axie Infinity was a hot ticket in CryptoTown, generating over $15 million a day last August. But thanks to a combination of poor in-game economics, inflation threatening the real world's economy and a $600 million hack reportedly caused by a fake job posting, the price of Axies and the game's Smooth Love Potion cryptocurrency collapsed. The same monsters that cost hundreds of dollars last year now fetch under $10.

"I got around 100 players playing for me with high-end Axies," Cryptobarbarian said to me over Twitter, "which overall cost around $100,000 at the height and are now worth nothing."

To gamers, stories like this provide ample reason to reject "Web3 gaming," a term referring to the integration of NFTs and cryptocurrency into games. The significant carbon footprint of ethereum and bitcoin adds to the resentment. Be it Ubisoft bringing NFTs into Ghost Recon or Square Enix launching Final Fantasy 7 NFTs, gamers have fiercely resisted the blockchain coming anywhere near their industry.  

Three Axies in Axie Infinity. 

Sky Mavis

The fear is that crypto and NFTs will deform gaming into a side hustle, transforming its purpose from entertainment to moneymaking. Play-to-earn titles such as Axie Infinity prove the point; they're not games as much as they are financial speculation with the veneer of a game.

"I've never met anyone that played it just for fun," Cryptobarbarian said of Axie Infinity, "only to make money." 

But Axie Infinity doesn't represent the future that many Web3 developers envision for gaming. Video game firms, both small and large, are developing titles they hope will clean the slate of Web3 gaming. All are on carbon-neutral blockchains such as polygon or solana, which are far more efficient than ethereum. (Whether they're as secure is an open question.) The goal isn't to make titles that entertain crypto speculators, but rather to make games fun enough that people can justify playing them regardless of whether they earn crypto. 

"I've long been a believer that gaming is one of the consumer internet categories that is most likely to bring on mainstream adoption of crypto," said Amy Wu, head of gaming at FTX Ventures, the investment arm of the FTX crypto exchange. "But I also believe when you have a hit game with Web3 elements, it's very likely that the majority of players will never actually trade those tokens. They're just playing the game."

Free to play, play to own

The upcoming wave of Web3 games will range from free-to-play mobile titles to big-budget AAA games for PC and console. On the simpler end of the scale is Shatterpoint. With an art style inspired by Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, it's an action RPG for Android and iOS that, on paper, looks like many top App Store games. There's a single-player campaign plus a PvP multiplayer mode. You earn new weapons and gear as you progress and, much like Fortnite and Call of Duty, the multiplayer is broken up into different "seasons."

But these seasons, segmented by "the shattering" in the game, is where the blockchain comes in. Players will be given a certain list of goals each season. If they complete one -- say, being one of the first 100 players to reach level 50, or staying atop of the PvP leaderboard for a certain amount of time -- their character will be converted into an NFT. Only a limited amount of NFTs will be minted per season. 

There are two reasons why players might want to bother scoring an NFT. The shattering acts as an in-game reset, so any gear you've collected will vanish. NFT characters, of which there will be a limited amount each season, are permanent. However your character looks when it's minted into an NFT, with whatever combination of gear equipped, that's how it'll look in perpetuity. The second benefit is that these NFTs can be sold on a marketplace -- if there's a market for them.

A screenshot from Shatterpoint. 

Estoty Games

There are three crucial elements that make this model sustainable, says Shatterpoint developer Benas Baltramiejunas. First, the game is free to play -- unlike P2E games like Axie Infinity, which requires the upfront cost of three Axie NFTs. Second, none of the items retained as an NFT can resemble "pay to win" mechanics. There can only be cosmetic benefits to owning it, not a competitive edge. Last, and most important, the game is designed with the assumption that most people playing won't be interested in minting their character as an NFT. It has to be fun for them too.

"We're using the NFT approach to create a bit of competitiveness, to incentivize players to play," he said. Shatterpoint is monetized by traditional microtransactions and from taking a small cut of NFT sales -- 2.5% is the traditional cut creators take. Baltramiejunas hopes that focusing on NFTs will result in both better game design and fairer prices. If developers can create a compelling game, revenue can theoretically be sorted out organically through whatever the player base sets as the value of the NFTs. 

"In free-to-play games you have whales which account for 10% of the player base but 90% of the revenue," Baltramiejunas said. "If you only have those microtransactions for monetization, you are only focusing on those whales during the content creation, and you're leaving everybody behind. However, with NFT integration, you don't need to monetize that aggressively. The market decides." 

NFT brands expand into gaming

While Shatterpoint is a mobile game that produces NFTs, the coming years will see many examples of the reverse: NFT collections turning into games. NFT drops, such as the famed Bored Ape Yacht Club, are doubling as crowdfunding platforms that produce games. Creators earn millions in royalties from sales, and use that money to expand the brand, theoretically boosting NFT prices in the process. Some brands are expanding into TV and film. Many are dabbling in gaming.

One such example is My Pet Hooligan. It's a product of AMGI Studios, an animation studio where former Pixar animator Colin Brady serves as chief creative and technology officer. The studio sees Unreal Engine 5 and blockchain technology as the next technologies that will drive entertainment, Brady told me at the recent NFT.NYC conference. 

AMGI Studios' goal of 2021 was to use Unreal Engine 5 to create an animated film for Netflix at half of the traditional cost. While the film was being greenlit, Brady explained, AMGI technical lead Kevin Mack approached him about starting an NFT collection. 

The result was My Pet Hooligan, a set of 8,888 3D rabbits. "We sold out in less than a minute, and all of a sudden people started saying, 'hey, when movie? When TV show? When video game?'" Brady said. The studio, filled with Unreal Engine programmers, already had a game in the works. 

The result is Rabbit Hole, a sandbox game that looks like a mix of Grand Theft Auto and Ratchet and Clank. Rabbit Hole is currently in closed alpha, available only for My Pet Hooligan NFT holders with only one map functional. The build of the game I saw at NFT.NYC was intriguing. It was certainly incomplete, with noticeable frame-rate issues, but had the clear foundation of a fun sandbox game.

My Pet Hooligan NFTs on the OpenSea marketplace.

AMGI Studios/OpenSea

Rabbit Hole will eventually be available for PC and console. Brady says the goal is to reach 1 million players by the end of the year.  To encourage the type of in-game socialization seen among players of Fortnite and Roblox, the studio developed a companion facial-recognition app for phones. If you perch your phone where a webcam typically is on a computer, it'll track your face and replicate all facial movements on your on-screen Hooligan.

Unlike Shatterpoint, which will integrate just NFTs, Rabbit Hole will use both NFTs and crypto. It will have a play-to-earn mechanic -- or play and earn, as technical lead Kevin Mack prefers to say -- in the form of in-game currency Karrots. These will be used to buy clothing, dances and more for the Hooligan avatars, but it doubles as a cryptocurrency that can be exchanged for ether or bitcoin. You can earn money playing Rabbit Hole, but Brady said it's not going to be life-changing cash. 

Then there's the NFT element. This is primed towards holders of the 8,888 My Pet Hooligan NFTs. While players who download the game will start with a generic Hooligan, My Pet Hooligan owners will be able to use their NFT as an avatar in the game. 

If the game gets popular enough, Mack said, there will be a certain prestige to owning one of these avatars. But he recognizes that to make that happen, the team has to make a game that people actually want to play.

"Superman No. 1 is valuable because Superman was a great comic," he said. "I think the NFT space for a while started to get that a little backward, where they thought the things were valuable just because they were collectable." 

To infinity...

Of all the NFT brands expanding into games, Bored Ape Yacht Club is the biggest. BAYC creators Yuga Labs are developing Otherside, a "metaverse" MMORPG. The term "metaverse" is nebulous, but in this case it refers to an open world where items are owned as NFTs and in-game currency is crypto that can be exchanged for dollars. Details on Otherside are scant, but Yuga has a huge warchest for it. The game's map will be made up of 200,000 plots of land, which players can buy and own. Over $350 million was raised from selling land back in May. 

Otherside may be the Web3 game with the highest budget, but perhaps the most ambitious is Star Atlas. 

In development since 2020, the Eve Online-inspired Star Atlas is crafted like a traditional AAA game. Michael Wagner, CEO of Star Atlas development studio ATMTA, told me there are around 200 developers working on the game. It's scheduled for release in 2026. 

Like Eve Online, Star Atlas is half game, half space simulator. Players ride spacecraft through the galaxy, socializing and battling with each other, exploring exoplanets, mining lands and meteors for resources and so on. 

Games like Eve Online are giant, big enough for players to lose themselves in for years. Star Atlas hopes to mimic that feat. On the way to doing so, it uses almost every new tool Web3 offers.

It starts with funding. Wagner said $185 million in revenue was raised in 2021, through the sale of an Atlas token and NFT ships, with a "substantial margin" of that funding development. In the game, ships, items and land will be owned as NFTs. There will be a comprehensive crypto economy built atop the game, which Wagner says will allow for not just a market, but a labor economy too. The economy isn't just in the game; part of Star Atlas will be built on the blockchain, meaning elements will be open source. People will be able to develop apps on top of this data, for things like spacecraft maintenance or resource management. 

Part of Star Atlas' economy will involve taxation. Just like in real life, a certain percentage of all sales will go to a treasury. There will be a DAO, or decentralized autonomous organization, in which token holders can vote on how these funds are used, be it to fund a new marketing campaign or a user engagement campaign. Then there will be another DAO specifically for the game itself, where token holders can vote on changes to the game, like additional features or ways to balance combat. 

"We've structured the economics of the DAO such that we don't lose control in the near term," Wagner said. "But in the future, it would even be possible for them to vote us out as the principal developer of the game and bring in somebody new if they think they could deliver the product in a superior fashion to us." 

Risks and rewards

The potential of Web3 gaming is tremendous, but its challenges are enormous. An examination of Star Atlas alone highlights many issues Web3 developers are likely to face.

First and foremost, making video games is hard. Making high-quality AAA games is harder still, even for veteran game studios, and the Star Atlas game alone is audacious in its ambition. The Web3 components offer additional opportunity for failure: An imbalanced economy, for instance, has the potential to completely break the game. Then there's security and regulation. Crypto has been a digital Wild West for years, with scams endemic. Regulators are slowly changing that. It's an open question whether Web3 gaming can survive in a regulated environment. 

"In many countries, consumer protection is the No. 1 driver of regulations. Given gaming is so mainstream, it will be a topic," said FTX Ventures' Wu. "100%, these assets are going to be regulated."

The final issue is the very commodity that fuels crypto tokens and NFT projects: hype. Games are often promised on NFT project road maps before a single second of development has been undertaken. As Brady noted, it took less than a day for My Pet Hooligan holders to demand the announcement of a game, movie or TV show to sustain hype and lift the NFT value. Vaporware is sure to be common.

Games will need to be developed in a way that insulates players from the crypto-rich speculators. Speculators outbidding each other can artificially raise the value of in-game items, which blocks players who actually want to play the game from accessing them. Recall the speculative bubble that caused the cost of entry to Axie Infinity to inflate to over $1,000.  

"I'm personally not interested in someone who's paying $100,000 for an NFT," said Brady. "That's a certain echelon. That's not normal society. I'm only interested if this helps every person."

Of all the developers I spoke to, a recurring theme was mistrust of any games company that promises a regular income, or dangles the possibility of earning enough money to quit the rat race. "Play-to-earn is not sustainable and is going to die off," said Baltramiejunas. Instead, the goal is for Web3 games to be more engaging than the games you play today, with the benefit of some pocket money on the side.

"If the game was good I would be satisfied with a little money as long as it's not totally a time waste," said Cryptobarbarian, reflecting on how much money he'd need to earn to justify playing games again.

"If I could earn some lunch money with it, that would be nice. But I think that will take at least a few more years before it happens." 

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Netflix Review: Still the Best Streaming Service

Netflix Review: Still the Best Streaming Service

When you think of streaming TV shows and movies, there's a good chance that Netflix is comes to mind first. Though competition from rivals like HBO Max and Disney Plus is fierce, it's still the best choice for streaming entertainment, period. 

Netflix includes a wide variety of familiar network shows and more original series, films, documentaries and specials than any of its myriad competitors. Despite challenges with retaining subscribers and a price bump, the world's first major streaming service remains our favorite choice thanks to its huge library of constantly refreshed content and its easy accessibility across different devices. In 2021, Netflix won 44 Emmys, making history and racking up more than the next two media companies combined. If you're looking for something new to watch, Netflix should be your top choice.  

Like

• Strong recommendation engine
• Easy to use across different devices
• Offline downloads available
• Extensive list of movies and shows
• Massive selection of original programs
• No commercials

Don't Like

• Cost for premium plans is on the higher end
• Can't watch shows as they air on other networks

Depending on the plan you choose, Netflix costs between $10 and $20 per month, which is at the higher end for a streaming service, as you can see in the chart below. Its recent price increase shook up the streaming world and moved Netflix closer to HBO Max in terms of cost. However, the pricier package lets you watch up to four screens at once, and create different user profiles, so in theory, you could split it among friends to lower the price. Thanks to its sheer variety and number of new things to watch, Netflix also gives you the most bang for your buck.

Streaming Services Compared

	Netflix	Peacock	HBO Max	Disney Plus	Apple TV Plus	Amazon Prime Video	Hulu
Monthly price	Starts at $9.99	Basic free with ads, ad-free for $5	$9.99 for basic with ads, $14.99 for ad-free	$7.99	$4.99	$8.99 (or included with $140/year Prime membership)	Basic $6.99 with ads, ad-free Premium for $12.99, Live TV for $70
Ads	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes
Top titles	Stranger Things, Squid Game, Bridgerton, Ozark, Money Heist	The Office, 30 Rock, Bel-Air, early access to Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon	Game of Thrones, Dune, Euphoria, DC titles	The Mandalorian, Loki, Encanto, Obi-Wan Kenobi	Ted Lasso, The Morning Show, CODA, Severance	Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Boys, Reacher, The Wheel of Time	Handmaid's Tale, Pen15, The Great, Bob's Burgers
Mobile downloads	Yes	Yes (Premium Plus plan)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
4K HDR available	Yes (on Premium plan)	No	Yes (limited titles)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Number of streams:	1 (2 for Standard, 4 on Premium)	3	3	4	6	2	2 (Unlimited with Live TV $9.99 add-on)

How Netflix started vs. how it's going

Between 2012-2013, Netflix premiered its first original TV shows, including Lilyhammer, House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black. Today, it has a catalog of more than 1,500 original TV shows and movies, including global hits like Stranger Things, Emmy winners such as Bridgerton, The Queen's Gambit and The Crown, as well as Oscar-nominated movies such as The Power of the Dog, Tick, Tick… Boom! and The Trial of the Chicago 7.

Though the company's been known for its commercial-free streaming experience since its inception, there are plans to introduce an ad-supported tier before 2022 ends. Additionally, Netflix aims to crackdown on password sharing by charging a fee for extra users on an account. The program is still in the pilot phase, but the days of crowdfunding your Netflix subscription may soon be over. 

As of 2022, Netflix has more than 220 million paid subscribers across 190 countries, after seeing a major spike in users during the pandemic. A dent in its subscriber base caused numbers to drop by 200,000, but there are still reasons to keep the service, with the main draw being its content.  

What shows and movies does Netflix have?

Netflix may have had the first-to-market advantage in the world of streaming services, but it's kept its momentum with its increasing number of original shows and movies -- many of which have won critical acclaim and major awards and nominations.   

Compared to other streaming platforms, you can't beat Netflix's slate of original TV shows that are now considered among the best of the modern era of television, including those mentioned above plus many more, such as Squid Game, Ozark, Never Have I Ever, Money Heist and Cobra Kai.

Read more:  Netflix: The 49 Absolute Best TV Shows to Watch

Outside of TV shows, Netflix's original programs include a wide range of comedies, dramas, foreign films and shows, documentary series, anime, stand-up comedy specials and reality dating and competition shows. Not all of them are runaway hits, but many of them are, and there's enough to explore interesting shows that may not have found a home on traditional network TV. And at a time when going to the movies is more fraught than it once was, Netflix offers a place to find new films: In 2022 alone, Netflix is set to release over 100 new movies, at least one per week. The selection spans across genres and geography, and includes K-dramas, animated features, and fantasy book adaptations.

Stranger Things is one of Netflix's powerhouse originals. 

Netflix

Netflix typically adds shows a full season at a time, though not while a show is airing on network TV -- so if you don't have cable or another platform like Hulu, you'll have to wait to watch for a few months to watch seasons in full. 

One complaint: Netflix content sometimes can come and go without warning. The only way to tell if something is leaving the service in the next 30 days is if you happen to tap on the details page for the given show or movie -- or search online for everything coming and going in a given month.

Another potential content issue to flag: In recent years Netflix has lost some of its most popular content (such as The Office, which moved to NBC's Peacock, Daredevil, which moved to Disney Plus and Friends, which moved to HBO Max) as other networks created their own streaming services. While it started as an online video store that was trying to offer every movie and TV series online, it may be slowly becoming more akin to the old HBO -- mostly featuring its own original programming, complemented with some things it licenses from other companies.

What's it like to use Netflix? 

I first subscribed to Netflix back in the first streaming days of 2007, so using the platform feels like second nature at this point. Even if you're new to it, it's pretty user-friendly: Open the app and tap on your profile (if you have one set up), and you'll see a homepage. You'll see Popular on Netflix, Continue Watching, Trending Now, Top Picks for you and a number of (sometimes oddly specific) other categories based on shows you've watched before. Mine include Critically-acclaimed Witty TV Comedies and Suburban-dysfunction TV Comedies, for example. 

Netflix's design encourages scrolling -- there are so many different categories to look through, and then shows and movies within those categories to continue scrolling into. You can create a watch list to help you cut down on this, but the vast, colorful library makes it easy to spend more time looking through options than actually watching a show, so be careful.

The Netflix app operates similarly across various devices. My home page on the web browser is nearly identical to that on my Apple TV, Roku and Amazon Fire TV Stick, both in content and layout. It's more condensed on the smaller iPhone and Android phone screens, but still follows the same format, and has a clear "Downloads" tab to find content to save to watch offline on your device. 

Rows and rows of content on Netflix can keep you busy.

James Martin/CNET

One difference between devices is voice commands: You might find it more or less difficult to fire up a Netflix show from your device's home screen depending on which voice-capable device you're using.

For example, when you say, "Watch Stranger Things" on the Apple TV and the iOS app on iPhone, it will first have you click which specific show (Stranger Things or Beyond Stranger Things), and then will take you to an Apple TV page for the show, and there it will give you the option to open Netflix and start episode 1. On Amazon Fire TV Stick, you can say, "Watch Stranger Things," and it will open Netflix automatically if you're logged into the app. On the Roku 4K stick, if you say, "Watch Stranger Things," it will take you right to the first episode in the app. Those are more hardware-side concerns, but interesting to note. 

Once you're in the Netflix app, though, voice commands work the same across devices: Go to the Search tab, hold the microphone button to dictate, and say the name of the show you're looking for. 

When you select a show or movie to watch, you have the option to fast-forward, rewind, add subtitles and change your audio settings. If you have a Premium account and a big enough 4K TV, watching in Ultra HD makes for a very cinematic experience. The show or movie you choose will also show up in your "Continue watching" section at the top of your homepage for easier access. 

How much does Netflix cost? 

Netflix offers three pricing plans: Basic, Standard and Premium. Here is how the costs and features break down:

Netflix plans

	Basic	Standard	Premium
Monthly price	$10	$15.50	$20
Number of screens you can watch on at the same time	1	2	4
Number of phones or tablets you can have downloads on	1	2	4
HD available	No	Yes	Yes
Ultra HD available	No	No	Yes

All plans include the ability to watch on any device, and the full, unlimited collection of movies and TV shows. All allow cancellation at any time. Netflix also offers a one-month free trial. 

Netflix's Basic plan costs more than Prime Video ($9 per month), more than Hulu's ad-based plan ($7 per month) but less than its more comparable no-ads plan ($13 per month). If you're on a shared Netflix account with family, chances are it's a Premium one ($20 per month) -- if you're actually splitting it between four people, that's only $5 per month each, and a strong value for all of the original content available, including some in 4K Ultra HD. Plus: No commercials on any plan. 

What features do you get on Netflix? 

Outside of general streaming, if you have the Standard or Premium plan, you can create different profiles for different users, and find your own list of personalized recommendations. 

Netflix's recommendation game is strong, from "Because you watched" carousels that have been improved by the new "two thumbs up" feature, to the option to remove content from your home page, to its "Play Something" shuffle feature for when you're unsure what to stream.

The platform also has a particularly appealing kid's section, with a solid catalog of content including CoComelon, Pokemon: Master Journeys and Trolls: The Beat Goes On! and a much more kid-friendly user interface – including the mystery box feature added earlier this year.

If you subscribe to the Premium plan, you can watch certain shows and movies in 4K Ultra HD on 4K TVs. You'll need a steady internet connection speed of at least 25 megabits per second, and streaming quality set to Auto or High. 

Netflix has more 4K content than just about any other streaming service, and a lot of its 4K shows and movies are also available in HDR. High dynamic range provides an even bigger improvement in image quality than 4K according to CNET's tests, with better contrast and color, and the difference is especially apparent on large, higher-end televisions. Netflix supports the two major HDR formats, generic HDR (aka HDR-10) as well as Dolby Vision. If you have a device that handles Dolby Vision, Netflix will play content (if available) in that format by default.

You can search for a selection of 4K TV shows and movies on the service with the Premium plan.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Data usage varies by format, ranging from about 1GB per hour for the standard-definition video to up to 7GB per hour for the highest-quality 4K streams. Downloading and streaming take up a similar amount of data, according to Netflix. If you want to avoid having Netflix eat up all of your data, you can take certain steps laid out on Netflix's website to adjust your data usage settings. 

All subscribers can download TV shows and movies on the Netflix app on mobile devices for offline viewing, though certain titles aren't available to download. 

Read more: 9 Handy Netflix Tricks That Can Help Make Streaming Better

Should you get it? 

Netflix remains my favorite streaming platform of the increasingly large bunch. It has a huge selection of movies and TV shows old and new, tons of high-quality original programs, and an easy-to-navigate interface. 

Even though it no longer offers a free trial, it's worth trying Netflix for a month if you want something new to watch.

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