As people emerge from their epidemic cocoons, Netflix has announced its slowest subscription growth in eight years.

However, it has a solution – video games.

The streaming behemoth announced on Tuesday that it will begin including video games in its existing membership tiers at no additional cost. The long-awaited expansion was confirmed in connection with the company's most recent financial report. During the months of April and June, the video service attracted 1.5 million new users, according to the financial report.

That's slightly better than the modest increase that management predicted after the service got off to a poor start during the winter months, but it's still much behind the service's recent growth rate.

Netflix's 5.5 million new members in the first half of this year are the lowest since 2013 when the firm was still focusing on original material rather than licensing old TV shows and movies.

Netflix is now offering video games, which is a huge step forward. Last week, the firm hinted at the move when it announced the hire of Mike Verdu, a seasoned video game executive, to explore prospective opportunities in another industry of entertainment.

Netflix wrote to shareholders on Tuesday, "We view gaming as another new content category for us, similar to our expansion into original films, animation, and unscripted TV."

Despite a slowing growth rate this year, Netflix remains the world's largest streaming service, beating out Walt Disney, HBO, Amazon, and Apple in an increasingly competitive industry.

Netflix had 209 million global customers at the end of June.