![]() ![]() ![]() Eventually, he spun out into a new venture in TapZen, which focused on mobile strategy games. While Verdu got his start in the gaming industry back in 1990 as the co-founder of Legend Entertainment – makers of the Spellcasting series, Mission Critical, and more – in 2009 he moved to Zynga during the Facebook game craze that saw Farmville and Mafia Wars permeate the culture. Looking through Verdu’s job history, it might appear Netflix’s early gaming phase will center around mobile-style games. To begin this new venture into gaming, Netflix has tapped Mike Verdu, most recently the VP of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Content at Facebook, as their VP of Game Development on July 14. Because of this, the line of thinking from the streaming giant likely is that diversifying what content is available on apps and gives users an incentive to keep their attention firmly on Netflix. In the April 2021 letter to shareholders, Netflix stated, “We compete with many activities for consumers’ entertainment time, ranging from watching linear TV, video gaming, and viewing user-generated content. While the obvious competition for Netflix is in other streaming services such as Disney+ and HBOMax, more recently the company has mentioned competition over screen and entertainment time. ![]() But why video games? To understand that, you have to understand how Netflix views competition. A monetary investment shows that the streamer is taking their seemingly sudden interest in video games seriously. This purchase signals the start of a new era for Netflix, more so than announcing that video games being included in the price of a subscription to Netflix. On September 28, Netflix announced their first gaming studio acquisition: Night School Studio, developers of Oxenfree and Afterparty. ![]()
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