Netflix makes a grand move for its gaming fans. Netflix is going to hire Mike Verdu who is an Oculus and EA veteran. He has been leading the teams at both Oculus and EA and is the lead game developer over there. Netflix too wishes to get into the video game industry and thus has hired Mike Verdu to add on to their existing efforts.
Netflix over the past few months has constantly been hiring many game developers. With Mike Verdu being a prominent name in the gaming industry this news has spread like fire everywhere. Hiring someone so distinguished and knowledgeable in the gaming industry gives us the idea that Netflix is quite serious about getting into this industry.
Reed Hastings the CEO of Netflix recently expresses that it sees Fortnite as its biggest competition as people love to play the game and often choose it over Netflix movies and series.
Talking about the achievements of Mike Verdu and why he is the most demanded game developer goes back to the fact that he has served so many companies in the field of games and virtual reality. He was the Vice President at Facebook and his main job was to create virtual reality-related content and ideas. He was the Senior Vice President at EA mobiles where his primary business was producing games for mobile phones. He also was the President and chief creative officer at Kabam which is also a gaming company.
At Netflix, he is the Vice President of game development and will work under Greg Peters who is the chief operating officer in Netflix.
This isn’t the first time Netflix is getting into the gaming industry. It has earlier tried it by developing games like ‘The Stranger Things game’ which was released on July 4, 2019. It also worked on a voice-controlled game called ‘The 3% Challenge’
and could be accessed through Alexa as well.
The Black Mirror: Bandersnatch was a role-playing game but it was included in a TV series and the viewers had the option to choose which way they wanted the series to go. They were given choices and they had to choose one.
All these games can be seen as side hustles but with the hiring of Mike Verdu, Netflix is thinking of going all into the gaming world. Verdu is quite experienced and has worked with different companies where he builds the entire blue map of the game. So Netflix might soon come up with a full-fledged action role play game before you know it.
Netflix stepping into games gives us an idea about how vast and bigger the gaming industry has grown. According to Newzoo, this industry is worth $ 175 billion. Also, a report by PwC talks about how gaming has grown even during the pandemic. It has grown more than the movies and series industry.
It isn’t quite easy to move into this industry, well talking about leading companies who have tried it for themselves like Google and Amazon. Google tried to create a studio to make games but later had to shut it down due to losses. Amazon too entered with the game Crucible.
Apple too is planning to enter by developing VR devices.
