Latest news with #MikeVerdu
Yahoo
22-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Netflix's Spirit Crossing Is A Gorgeous Cozy MMO With A Lot To Prove
Spirit Crossing is the next life sim from the Netflix-owned studio Spry Fox, makers of the beloved Animal Crossing-like Cozy Grove. Netflix announced the ambitious social MMO this week alongside some other games and a renewed commitment to investing in gaming for years to come. Spirit Crossing will be a big test of just how serious it still is about that. A trailer revealing the game shows characters fishing, dancing, and gliding around a Studio Ghibli-esque world. Alongside Animal Crossing, there are clear influences from other Nintendo games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, with the cute rituals and interactions of Cozy Grove blown out into a more full-fledged online social sim. There will be building, exploration, and more. It could end up being a great game, but will it be great on mobile? Netflix purchased Spry Fox in 2022, a year after Cozy Grove blew up during the pandemic, thanks in part to it being a great Animal Crossing-inspired cozy game that wasn't exclusive to the Switch. Last year, the studio released Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit exclusively on mobile, an uneven sequel that drew lots of complaints for its smaller form factor and Netflix exclusivity. Using the touch screen to maneuver around, do odd jobs, and interact with the game's eclectic anthropomorphized cast turned out to be surprisingly cumbersome. 'The touch controls are the worst but thankfully phone controllers are super compatible and work like a charm!' one player wrote on Reddit, echoing a common refrain among the series' veteran fans. Netflix's confusing gaming strategy was recently punctuated by the closure of its AAA studio and numerous departures, including that of former head of development Mike Verdu. His replacement, former Epic Games exec Alain Tascan, told Bloomberg at GDC this week that Netflix is focused on mobile and TV and wants to cut down on the amount of potential friction for new players, like needing to own a console. The company also expects its first Smart TV games to launch later this year, he told The Verge. No microtransactions or in-game ads, but also fewer indie games. It's part of a five-year plan for Netflix to find its own Roblox- or Fortnite-style killer app for games. This is apparently supposed to be a more focused approach than the company has employed in the last few years, though the genres Netflix is doubling down on—party games, kids games, narrative games, and 'mainstream' games—suggest this is more of a 'we'll know it when we see it' type of thing. I'm skeptical that anything will be different this time around, if only because it still seems like the mandate to make great games is hemmed in by Netflix's existing business model. The subscription service is essentially a bundle, but it's trying to grow games like it's a platform. You can understand why Netflix would be keen to get games running natively on smart TVs, or streamed to them, where it doesn't have to pay Apple a 30 percent App Store fee. But smartphones as controllers can be extremely limiting. Surely Netflix will have to start making its own gaming controller at some point, right? And at that point you're half way to being a game console anyway. What's the point of keeping your games off of PlayStation 5 and Switch 2 when other companies (Microsoft) are rushing to go multiplatform? The most popular games—Fortnite, Roblox, Genshin Impact—are on (almost) everything. This is why I'm so curious to see Spirit Crossing in action. Maybe Netflix is finally onto something, or maybe it's still trying to pound a square peg into a round hole. . For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Netflix's first gaming boss has left the company
Engadget has been testing and reviewing consumer tech since 2004. Our stories may include affiliate links; if you buy something through a link, we may earn a commission. Read more about how we evaluate products. Mike Verdu has left Netflix, according to Game File with Stephen Totilo. Netflix brought the former Oculus and EA exec onboard to launch and lead its gaming efforts in 2021. Under Verdu's leadership, the company released a bunch of new and ported titles, as well as establishing an internal game development operation. In mid-2024, however, Netflix changed its gaming strategy and hired Alain Tascan, the executive vice president for game development at Epic Games, to lead its gaming efforts. Verdu still served as the VP for games until November 2024, after which he was named as the Vice President of generative AI for games. On LinkedIn, Verdu wrote that his role was about "driving a 'once in a generation' inflection point for game development and player experiences using generative AI." He added that he was "focused on a creator-first vision for AI, one that puts creative talent at the center, with AI being a catalyst and an accelerant." Verdu has yet to update his LinkedIn profile with a new role. As Totilo said in his newsletter, Netflix's gaming efforts have undergone some big changes since Tascan took over. In 2022, Netflix hired former Overwatch boss Chacko Sonny to lead an internal AAA studio known as Team Blue. It then brought on Halo exec Joseph Staten, as well as God of War art director Rafael Grassett to work on a multi-platform AAA game for an all-new IP. But in October 2024, Netflix shut down Team Blue. The company had also lost Leanne Loombe, who headed up its second and third-party gaming development and publishing efforts. Loombe recently became the head of games at Annapurna Interactive following a mass exodus, wherein all 25 members of the studio's team collectively resigned. And in early February, Netflix canceled its release plans for six games that were previously heading to iOS and Android, including Thirsty Suitors and Tales of the Shire: A Lord of the Rings Game.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Netflix's first gaming boss has left the company
Mike Verdu has left Netflix, according to Game File with Stephen Totilo. Netflix brought the former Oculus and EA exec onboard to launch and lead its gaming efforts in 2021. Under Verdu's leadership, the company released a bunch of new and ported titles, as well as establishing an internal game development operation. In mid-2024, however, Netflix changed its gaming strategy and hired Alain Tascan, the executive vice president for game development at Epic Games, to lead its gaming efforts. Verdu still served as the VP for games until November 2024, after which he was named as the Vice President of generative AI for games. On LinkedIn, Verdu wrote that his role was about "driving a 'once in a generation' inflection point for game development and player experiences using generative AI." He added that he was "focused on a creator-first vision for AI, one that puts creative talent at the center, with AI being a catalyst and an accelerant." Verdu has yet to update his LinkedIn profile with a new role. As Totilo said in his newsletter, Netflix's gaming efforts have undergone some big changes since Tascan took over. In 2022, Netflix hired former Overwatch boss Chacko Sonny to lead an internal AAA studio known as Team Blue. It then brought on Halo exec Joseph Staten, as well as God of War art director Rafael Grassett to work on a multi-platform AAA game for an all-new IP. But in October 2024, Netflix shut down Team Blue. The company had also lost Leanne Loombe, who headed up its second and third-party gaming development and publishing efforts. Loombe recently became the head of games at Annapurna Interactive following a mass exodus, wherein all 25 members of the studio's team collectively resigned. And in early February, Netflix canceled its release plans for six games that were previously heading to iOS and Android, including Thirsty Suitors and Tales of the Shire: A Lord of the Rings Game.
The Guardian
26-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Netflix's games were once its best-kept secret – where did it all go wrong?
When Netflix first started adding video games to its huge catalogue of streaming TV shows and films, it did so quietly. In 2021, after releasing an impressive experiment with the idea of interactive film in Black Mirror: Bandersnatch in 2018 and a free Stranger Things game in 2019, Netflix began expanding more fully into interactive entertainment. The streamer's gaming offering, for a long time, was its best-kept secret. Whoever was running it really had an eye for quality: award-winningly brilliant and relatively little-known indie games comprised the majority of its catalogue, alongside decent licensed games based on everything from The Queen's Gambit to the reality dating show Too Hot to Handle. Subscribers could play games such as Before Your Eyes, a brief and touching story about a life cut short; Spiritfarer, about guiding lost souls to rest and Into the Breach, a superb sci-fi strategy game with robots v aliens. The company bought or invested in several game studios known for making critically acclaimed work, including London-based Ustwo games (which was behind Monument Valley). It also established a studio in California to work on blockbuster games, staffed by veteran developers. But it seems things are changing. That blockbuster studio has been closed, as first reported by Game File, before it could ever release a game. Its latest tie-in game, Squid Game Unleashed, absolutely sucks – it's constructed around the celebration of slapstick violence, making it a terrible fit for a satirically violent show about capitalist exploitation. Funding a bunch of indie darlings and hiring big-name talent from the likes of Blizzard and Bungie for its game studio gave the impression that Netflix really was keen on becoming a part of the gaming industry, and doing it properly. Now that is very much in question. The company has made layoffs across its gaming divisions, including at Night Studio – makers of weird-fiction supernatural teen horror series Oxenfree. It has cancelled plans for several forthcoming games that were due to join the service, including indie hits Thirsty Suitors and Don't Starve Together, and promising-looking hobbit game Tales of the Shire. What's going on? There have been several changes of leadership. Christopher Lee, a former EA executive who was made the company's first head of games in 2016, left to join Xbox in 2022. Mike Verdu, another former executive at EA and Oculus, became head of game development in 2021 but has since been replaced by Alain Tuscan, hired from Epic (the makers of Fortnite). Meanwhile, the firm's head of developer relations Leanne Loombe – who presumably has excellent taste, having brought so many wonderful indie games to the service since joining in 2021 – left earlier this year. These significant strategic changes have happened in the past six months since Tuscan took over. Current co-CEO Greg Peters said in an earnings call early this year that Netflix was refocusing its gaming efforts. 'Based on all our learnings and under the leadership of Alain Tuscan we are refining our strategy.' Peters described how the streamer would focus on narrative games based on Netflix intellectual property such as party and couch co-op games, saying: 'We think of this as a successor to family board game night, or an evolution of what the TV game show used to be … games for kids, no ads, no payments … and more recognisable mainstream titles.' None of that looks great for any of the studios Netflix has bought over the past few years, all of which were lauded for their original, creative and unusual games. The inevitable conclusion is that Netflix is retreating to a safe, predictable gaming strategy, which is immensely disappointing for anyone who hoped that the streaming giant might be a much-needed source of investment in gaming creativity. In the earnings call, Peters kept reiterating how successful that Squid Game tie-in had been: depressingly, it is the company's most successful game, despite being as thin and transparent as a piece of wet tissue. It looks as if we can expect much more of that in future. I had once worried that, like Google before it, Netflix would simply exit the gaming space as soon as it became evident that it is a really expensive, unpredictable and difficult business to break into. It seems that the streaming giant is keen on sticking around, but no longer so keen on investing in creativity and quality. I would urge whoever takes up the $1.3m job as Netflix's next face of games to remember that these things are not mutually exclusive. By investing in originality alongside those nailed-on licensed games and big names, you will ensure that Netflix has a real future in games. One can fund the other, and the one eternal truth of the games business is that quality really, really matters – and gamers know when they're being condescended to. The latest in Capcom's superb action series, Monster Hunter Wilds, is out this week. I've played these games for almost 20 years, and about 12 of those were spent trying to convince people that they do get good eventually, after you get past the initial boring gathering quests and steep learning curve. Monster Hunter World, from 2018, made the series a lot friendlier, though, and Wilds makes it friendlier still: its 15-hour single-player story is full of dramatic and exciting fights against awe-inspiring, intimidating creatures. It's like an extended tutorial on what makes Monster Hunter brilliant. After the first couple of quests you will need no further convincing, even if you've never played one of these games before. Available on: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X Estimated playtime: 15 hours for the story, then potentially 100 more hours of hunting fun Sign up to Pushing Buttons Keza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gaming after newsletter promotion Microsoft has unveiled a new generative AI model, Muse, that can create gameplay footage. They call it a World and Human Action Model (WHAM). It was trained on a Ninja Theory game, Bleeding Edge, seemingly without its players' knowledge. Wired quotes many game developers who hate this entire idea, but that hasn't stopped Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella from enthusing about the possibility of a whole game catalogue made by AI. The publisher of the ludicrously compulsive card game Balatro won a victory recently, persuading PEGI to downgrade the game's age rating from an 18-plus to 12-plus. (It is not a gambling game, but it does feature playing cards and a version of poker rules, hence the adult-only rating.) 'This is a good step from PEGI – bringing nuance to their ratings criteria,' said the game's developer. 'I hope this change will allow developers to create without being unfairly punished.' Assassin's Creed Shadows has leaked after retailers broke its street date, meaning players have been streaming the game from their physical disc copies. If you're looking forward to it, beware the internet for spoilers. NetEase, a Chinese company that has invested hugely in western and Japanese game development recently, is reportedly scaling back its interest in video games, putting more than a dozen studios at risk. Bloomberg reports that hundreds of jobs and several games have already been canned. Warner Bros Discovery has cancelled its Wonder Woman game and is closing three of its video game development studios, reports Reuters. The company joins Microsoft's Xbox and Sony, who closed offices last year to reduce costs. 'I saw taxis as magical things': Sega's pop-punk classic Crazy Taxi at 25 Nature documentaries, pet lizards and spying on players: how Monster Hunter Wilds built a whole new world Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered – the good, the bad and the gloomy of Lara Croft releases | ★★★☆☆ Reader Michael asks: 'My sister has rigid screen-time restrictions for her 10-year old son, who isn't allowed a Switch but is obsessed with video games. As his uncle, and as a game designer, I want to fuel his passion, but I respect her boundaries. Unfortunately, his limited game time is largely spent playing dopamine-fuelled, hyper-casual games on a web browser. I've been advocating for a Switch so he can play something more nutritious. She has cautiously asked me to recommend some appropriate games. Top of my list are Mario, Zelda and Animal Crossing. Since you're a mother and a gamer, are there any in particular you'd recommend?' You can't go far wrong with Nintendo's games in terms of safety and child appropriateness. (I also appreciate that the Switch doesn't have a YouTube app, or an easily accessible web browser.) For a 10-year-old, it's going to come down to what he's interested in: is he into adventure stories? If so, Zelda is the thing (BOTW is a 12 but if your sister is strict about that, Link's Awakening is 7-plus). My animal and dinosaur-obsessed boy loved Pokémon passionately (Sword and Shield are the best Switch picks). Mario is a huge hit in my house with both my kids. Despite their very different personalities, they both adore Mario Party Jamboree – I think as adults we often dismiss these casual-ish party games but there's tremendous variety and creativity in the 100+ different minigames. Minecraft (offline!) is also obviously a mainstay for that age group, too. Nintendo Labo is also a parent-pleasing option due to all the cardboard crafting, if your sister is coming around from a belief that video games are inherently bad. I've had many versions of this conversation with other parents who aren't enmeshed in gaming themselves. It has reminded me that when parents try to ban something, we often create problems that we're not aware of. Your nephew is fascinated by video games, but he's playing the least nourishing versions of them possible through the only means he has. My parents restricted my own game-playing time to weekends only when I was wee, hoping to put the brakes on my passion for them. (That worked out brilliantly.) Where possible, I think we're often better off engaging with the things our kids enjoy, while also helping them moderate themselves and keep to our boundaries. It's time-intensive, but worthwhile. If you've got a question for Question Block – or anything else to say about the newsletter – hit reply or email us on pushingbuttons@
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Netflix Gaming Is As Confusing As Ever
In 2021, Netflix made the unusual move of purchasing Oxenfree maker Night School Studio. 'We're inspired by their bold mission to set a new bar for storytelling in games,' then-VP of game development Mike Verdu wrote at the time. Nearly four years later, Verdu is no longer head of development and Oxenfree, a bespoke, original supernatural coming-of-age indie adventure, feels like precisely the type of game Netflix is no longer interested in making. The streaming platform best known for mega-hits like Squid Game and Stranger Things made a splash in the gaming world with high-profile but niche publishing plays for things like 2023's Oxenfree II: Lost Signals and 2024's Monument Valley 3. These were the types of games that had drawn buzz on console storefronts a decade prior and helped make the early App Store on iPhone synonymous with artful game design. But the most notable result of the dozens of targeted deals and small studio acquisitions was a widely cited figure in 2023 stating that reportedly less than 1 percent of Netflix subscribers were actually playing the 'free' games included with their paid subscriptions. For many subscribers, the carefully tucked away games seemed to be out of sight, out of mind. Or maybe they were simply a poor fit for an audience who had already signaled they were there to watch Bridgerton and not solve adventure game puzzles. Former PlayStation exec Shawn Layden once compared the strategy to sticking coffee machines in cars. Instead of games like Oxenfree finding a place to shine on the service, Netflix's most downloaded games have been the GTA Trilogy and Squid Game: Unleashed, a kind of gory reskin of Fall Guys. These were not the shiny indie objects that helped launch Netflix Games, but they appear to be its future. 'Going forward, we're focusing on offering best-in-class titles in a few key genres including immersive, narrative games based on our IP, socially engaging party games, games for kids and mainstream established titles (like Grand Theft Auto),' the company wrote in its letter to shareholders last month. Co-CEO Gregory K. Peters elaborated in a fourth-quarter earnings call: We've got fan favorites based on Netflix IP, things like Too Hot to Handle, Emily in Paris, Selling Sunset, and to our latest big release, Squid Game: Unleashed, which we really think validates our Netflix game formula, which is enabling this virtuous cycle between linear content and simultaneous game offerings. And we are just scratching the surface today in terms of what we can ultimately do in that space. But we already see how this approach not only extends the audience's engagement with the universe and a story but also creates a synergy that reinforces both mediums, the interactive and the noninteractive side. So based on all of those learnings and under the leadership of (sic) we continue to refine our strategy. And we're going to be focusing on more narrative games based on Netflix IP. These are consistent fan favorites and we've got a lot in the library to work with there. This apparent retreat into licensed slop dovetails with Netflix's recent pivot away from a number of previously announced deals for adding an assortment of acclaimed indie games to its subscription library. Klei Entertainment's Lab Rat, Don't Starve Together, and Rotwood are no longer coming to the service, What's On Netflix reported last week. The excellent Thirsty Suitors isn't getting added either, and Crashlands 2 and Placid Plastic Duck were recently ditched as well. These moves come alongside Netflix's head of second- and third-party game development, Leanne Loombe, departing the company to help lead the recently rebooted Annapurna Interactive. She was the one in charge of getting Hades ported to mobile last year. By themselves, these changes might just indicate slight tweaks to an evolving strategy, but in the context of recent layoffs and departures they give the impression of another tech giant that fumbled its way into games, got impatient with the slow-burn process of figuring it out, and then impatiently pivoted toward the lowest hanging fruit. Why woo indie darlings to your service when you can adapt the latest Netflix hit into a quick genre flip instead? Nowhere does this retreat seem more evident than in the quiet shutdown of 'Team Blue' last fall. After spending the last few years poaching industry veterans from Overwatch, Halo, and God of War to work on a big-budget console game, Game File reported in October that Netflix had disbanded the team. It recalled Google's squandered attempt at in-house blockbuster development during the Stadia years, and Meta's recent closure of The Order 1886 studio Ready at Dawn just four years after acquiring it for its ambitious VR plans. At the beginning of 2024, just a few years into its own gaming initiative, Netflix was already focused on how to make its gaming more profitable, including higher prices, adding microtransactions, and exploring in-game ads, The Wall Street Journal reported. By June, Verdu was being moved out of the top Netflix Gaming position to focus on 'the cutting edge of game innovation' instead. His official title is now VP of generative AI. Former Epic Games exec Alain Tascan took over as president of Netflix Games the following month. Putting the head of Fortnite in charge could signal that Netflix hasn't abandoned its bigger gaming ambitions, just recalibrated them. Or maybe its future is similarly an infinitely monetizable metaverse, this one of Netflix IP crossovers instead of pop stars and Marvel characters. While Netflix's gaming footprint feels as shallow as ever, that doesn't mean it's worth completely writing off. Over 300 million people have subscriptions, even as the streaming platform keeps raising its price, and at any moment they can boot up the app and start playing some of the best games around like Kentucky Route Zero, Into the Breach, Terra Nil, Dead Cells, and Death's Door. Two of 2024's GOTY contenders, Arranger and The Rise of the Golden Idol, are just waiting to be discovered by people flicking through for the latest Too Hot to Handle spin-off. There's a lot of potential there if Netflix can figure out how to make it work, or has the patience to keep trying to. For now, it seems much more interested in bringing more live events and sports to the broader Netflix streaming library then creating a home-grown, critically-acclaimed gaming hit. And how does Oxenfree III compete with the NFL? 'Netflix's Big Game Is Just Getting Started,' read a WSJ headline from December. They did not mean video games. . For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
