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Netflix has hired video game veteran Mike Verdu, signaling that the video streaming service is poised to expand into another fertile area of entertainment. (Marcio José Sanchez, Associated Press)
SAN RAMON, Calif .– Netflix has hired video game veteran Mike Verdu, signaling that the video streaming service is poised to expand into another fertile area of entertainment.
The addition of Verdu as Netflix’s vice president of game development, confirmed on Thursday, comes as the company seeks to maintain the momentum it gained last year when people turned to the service. streaming video to overcome the bottlenecks imposed during the pandemic.
Netflix ended up adding 37 million subscribers worldwide last year, by far the largest annual gain in its history. But the landscape has changed dramatically now that the mitigation of the pandemic has allowed people to return to some semblance of normal life.
The video service stumbled out of the door in the first three months of this year, posting its smallest first-quarter subscriber increase in four years, and it predicted its spring gains would be meager as well. The Los Gatos, Calif., Company is due to release its April-June results on Tuesday.
The addition of video games would give Netflix another way to build on the nearly 208 million subscribers it was bragging about at the end of March. It wouldn’t come as a surprise either, given that Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings has long said the company competes with video games as much for some of people’s free time as it does with others. video streaming services offered by Amazon. , Hulu, Walt Disney Co. and Apple.
Netflix has not directly commented on its potential entry into the video game, but left little doubt about its intention when announcing Verdu’s title to the business. Verdu joined Netflix from Facebook’s Oculus, where he oversaw the games of the virtual reality headset maker. He previously worked for video game makers Electronic Arts and Zynga.
Now the bigger questions are when Netflix might start offering video games and whether it intends to charge a separate fee for playing them or include them as part of its video streaming services.
In a research note, CFRA analyst Tuna Amobi called video games a logical addition to Netflix’s vast library of TV series and movies, helping to set the stage for possible price hikes that most subscribers will accept.
Greg Peters, chief operating officer of Netflix, told investors in April that video games could be another way to engage subscribers already immersed in the stories that unfold in the service’s TV series and movies.
“We’re trying to figure out what all these different ways are to increase those connection points, we can dig deeper into that fandom,” Peters said at the time. Verdu will report to Peters in his new job.
Investors appeared to be taking a wait-and-see stance on Netflix’s potential foray into video games. The company’s stock price fell 1% to close Thursday at $ 542.95. While much of the stock market recently hit record highs, shares of Netflix are down 8% from their January high of $ 593.29.
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