At the end of October 2024, Netflix announced that it was closing its AAA studio Team Blue, which had never released a single game. Instead, the company went in a different direction and decided to invest in artificial intelligence to create future projects. This was reported by Insider Gaming.
Mike Verdue, Vice President of Generative AI for Gaming at Netflix, wrote on his LinkedIn page about the new position and future plans and direction of the company.
"At long last, I am ready to talk about what I’m doing next: I am working on driving a “once in a generation” inflection point for game development and player experiences using generative AI. This transformational technology will accelerate the velocity of development and unlock truly novel game experiences that will surprise, delight, and inspire players," Verdu noted.
Mike Verdu also says that generative AI is a new opportunity not only for Netflix but for the entire industry. He notes that this technology has a lot of potential and that players will benefit from such changes. At the same time, users in the comments were not too happy with such changes in the company, which recently closed an entire studio and laid off employees. Verdu himself says to ignore the speculation around him.
"Pay no mind to the uninformed speculation in the media about the changes in Netflix Games. What you’ve seen over the last several months was actually a planned transition," the statement reads.