In October 2022 Netflix announced an escalation in its gaming ambitions with the internal studio Team Blue, making some eye-catching hires from across the AAA industry including Chacko Sonny (ex-Blizzard) as studio head, Joseph Staten (ex-343 Industries) and Rafael Grassetti (ex-Sony Santa Monica). Mike Verdu was VP of Netflix Games and said they were out to "build the next big thing in gaming."
Womp womp. Two years on, Netflix announced the closure of Team Blue without it having shipped anything of note, and the three big name hires mentioned above have all departed. But Mike Verdu remains, and has now become the VP for GenAI for Games at Netflix. And he wants you to know one thing: This all happened exactly as planned, OK, and generative AI is in fact a "once in a generation inflection point," which is also how I feel these days when I get out of bed too quickly.
