Skip to main content

Netflix could add games to its platform within the next year

Following months of speculation, Netflix has signaled its intent to move into gaming after confirming the hiring of Mike Verdu, a major figure in the gaming industry with high-level experience at the likes of Facebook-owned Oculus, Electronic Arts,  Zynga, and Atari.

Verdu is being brought in to build and lead a team at Netflix geared toward game publishing, the video streaming giant confirmed to multiple media outlets on Wednesday, July 14.

Recommended Videos

Netflix is yet to make an official announcement about the precise nature of its gaming ambitions, but well-connected Mark Gurman of Bloomberg said the company is aiming to start offering games to subscribers on its platform “within the next year.”

A person with knowledge of the matter told Gurman that Netflix isn’t planning to charge extra for the gaming content, meaning that current subscribers will get a lot more bang for their buck — if they’re into gaming, that is.

Verdu will be reporting to Netflix chief operating officer Greg Peters, who during a recent earnings call hinted at the company’s gaming ambitions, saying there was “no doubt that games are going to be an important form of entertainment and an important sort of modality to deepen that fan experience.”

The California-based streaming platform will be hoping that adding a completely new strand to its offerings will attract new people to its service and cement the loyalty of current subscribers as it continues to compete with numerous rivals, among them Disney+, Hulu, and Apple TV+.

In other efforts, Netflix has also expanded into the podcast space with shows linked to its content, recently doubling down on its efforts with the hiring of former Apple executive N’Jeri Eaton who’s been brought in to lead podcast operations at the streaming company.

In its last quarterly report in April, Netflix saw a slowdown in its global subscriber growth, adding only 4 million from the previous quarter to bring the current total to 208 million. The company claimed this was partly down to the pandemic disrupting new productions, leading to a drop in output that may have caused some folks to look elsewhere. It added that boosting its subscriber base for the quarter ending March 31 was always going to be a challenge as it gained so many new sign-ups during the height of the pandemic in 2020 when more people were staying home.

By diving into gaming, Netflix will be hoping to boost its base once again, especially in its home market where growth has been particularly sluggish.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
A classic platformer trilogy is coming to Xbox Game Pass tomorrow
Spyro flies off away from an attack with white mountains in the background.

After a little tease earlier today, Xbox quickly confirmed that the Spyro Reignited Trilogy is coming to Xbox Game Pass shortly. Best of all, it's hitting multiple tiers, including Game Pass Standard.

Spyro Reignited Trilogy includes Spyro the Dragon, Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage!, and Spyro: Year of the Dragon, and will be added to the subscription service on November 12 -- so, tomorrow. It'll be available on Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, and Game Pass Standard.

Read more
30 years ago, this movie gave video game adaptations a bad name
Mark Dacascos and Scott Wolf in Double Dragon.

Long before director Uwe Boll stunk up the video game movie genre with House of the Dead, BloodRayne, Postal, Far Cry, and more, Hollywood's earliest attempts to bring gaming franchises to the big screen were dismal failures. For the worst offender, movie historians might point to 1993's Super Mario Bros., the live-action cinematic bomb that drove Nintendo out of Hollywood for three decades until The Super Mario Bros. Movie brought the company back in 2023. That was definitely a terrible film, but it wasn't until 1994's Double Dragon movie that video game adaptations found a new low.

1994 was also the year that the Street Fighter movie hit theaters with a bravura performance by the late Raul Julia as well as a hilariously awful turn by Jean-Claude Van Damme. That film is at least fun to watch, which is more than we can say for Double Dragon. The source material for Double Dragon was a 1987 arcade game -- and its sequels -- that allowed up to two players to take control of Billy and Jimmy Lee as they went up against a gang called the Black Warriors to rescue Billy's kidnapped girlfriend, Marian. It wasn't exactly On the Waterfront, but most of the games from that era weren't big on story.

Read more
5 years ago, the best true crime show of the 2010s went completely unnoticed on Netflix
Kaitlyn Dever stands in a cramped elevator in Unbelievable.

True crime is one of the most popular forms of storytelling there is right now. It's also one of the most difficult to get right. After all, when a TV show or a movie is recreating and using real crimes to tell a story, how does it do so without exploiting the real-life victims involved or disregarding them in favor of focusing more on their attackers? A delicate balance between sensitivity and compelling drama must be found. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't.

No TV show in recent memory walks that difficult tightrope better than Unbelievable. The acclaimed Netflix miniseries premiered five years ago this week after receiving very little promotion from its streaming platform. As a result, Unbelievable flew almost completely under the radar in the weeks following its release. That was frustrating to witness in 2019, and it's still just as disappointing five years later.

Read more