Netflix AI-Gaming Chief Mike Verdu Exits Company

Mike Verdu, former head of Netflix’s video games division who stepped down in November to head up the streamer’s generative AI gaming initiative, has exited the complany complete, TheWrap has learned.

Verdu was hired to lead games division in 2021; in November, he was replaced in that role by former Epic Games executive vice president Alain Tascan.

Prior to joining Netflix, Verdu worked as vice president of content for Facebook’s Reality Labs, where he was in charge of working with developers to create games for Oculus, and senior vice president of mobile for Electronic Arts, responsible for mobile game studios that operated “SimCity BuildIt”, “Plants vs. Zombies 2,” “Real Racing 3,” “The Sims Freeplay,” “The Simpsons: Tapped Out,” “Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes,” and other mobile-game services.

Since launching the division in 2021, Netflix has acquired four game development studios – Night School, Boss Fight, Next Games and Spry Fox – and released over 100 games, including acquired titles like the “Grand Theft Auto” franchise’s mobile games and originals such as “Squid Game: Unleashed,” its most successful title to date.

It also announced WWE mobile games coming exclusively to the platform later this year as part of its broader partnership with the company, an Electric State game set in the universe of the Russo Brothers upcoming film and “Street Fighter IV CE.”

Netflix has pivoted the focus of its gaming division to casual gaming rather than AAA titles and shuttered its Team Blue studio back in September.

“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,” co-CEO Greg Peters told analysts in December. “We’ll also be introducing party and couch co-op games on the TV delivered from the cloud. We think of this as a successor to family board game night or an evolution of what the game show on TV used to be.”

Peters added that the company is already seeing “see positive impacts in acquisition and retention from our game-playing members.”

“Now, those effects are relatively small currently, but frankly, so is our investment in games relative to our overall content budget. And we’re going to stay disciplined about scaling that investment as we see continued scaling in member benefits,” he continued. So, to try and summarize, there’s plenty more to do in this space, but we’re breaking into a whole new content category, which, by the way, drives approximately $140 billion in consumer spend, ex China, ex Russia, and not even including the ad revenue. So, we’re iteratively showing our members that we are a place to discover and play games, and we look forward to continuing to launch bigger and bigger games every year.”

Netflix will be at the 2025 Game Developers Conference next week. News of Verdu’s exit was first reported by Stephen Totilo’s Game File.

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