As a Slap in the Face, Netflix Pivots to Generative-AI Games Just Days After Shuttering ‘Netflix Games’

In a turn of events that unfortunately seems to be shocking nobody, Netflix has announced their pivot into Generative-AI games, days after closing the doors on their Netflix Games studios. After losing industry veterans, the only logical thing to do is produce some AI slop, right? Right?

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A LinkedIn post by Mike Verdu, the new Vice President for Gen-AI at Netflix, can be quoted as saying the following:

I am focused on a creator-first vision for AI, one that puts creative talent at the center, with AI being a catalyst and an accelerant. AI will enable big game teams to move much faster, and will also put an almost unimaginable collection of new capabilities in the hands of developers in smaller game teams.

Introducing Oasis: the first playable AI-generated game.

We partnered with @DecartAI to build a real-time, interactive world model that runs >10x faster on Sohu. We're open-sourcing the model architecture, weights, and research.

Here's how it works (and a demo you can play!): pic.twitter.com/X39vkx3WID

— Etched (@Etched) October 31, 2024

This news comes shortly after the announcement of Oasis, the first playable AI-generated game. Is this Netflix jumping on trends, after seeing the sheer number of streamers trying out Minecraft but AI? It’s hard to say, but it feels bad no matter how you look at it.

As many commenters on the post have mentioned, this pivot seems rather short-sighted. A personal favorite of mine comes from Corporate IT Director Chris Layton, who said the following:

It’s no surprise that as you look at the included image with a little scrutiny that you realize those roads abruptly end and lead nowhere.

I have to agree with Chris here. This whole plan seems a bit short-sighted and leaves countless industry veterans looking for another home yet again. Trend chasing gets us nowhere and muddles the creative vision along the way. Now that Gen-AI is acceptable in games, how long until we get Gen-AI content in Netflix originals?

Gen-AI can be useful for some things. Games like EA Sports NCAA College Football 25 used AI to help build the likenesses of players since there are thousands of them. A team of humans was used to make the rest and provided us with one of the most fun games of the year.

Only time will tell how this project pans out, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see it canceled after just one season, much like many of our favorite shows. Netflix, get it together. All we want to do is like you, but you always make that so hard!