After shifting its gaming strategy to focus more on games played on the TV, Netflix announced it’s acquiring Ready Player Me, an avatar-creation platform based in Estonia. The streamer said Friday it plans to use the startup’s development tools and infrastructure to build avatars that will allow Netflix subscribers to carry their personas and fandom across different games.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Ready Player Me had raised $72 million in venture backing from investors, including a16z, Endeavor, Konvoy Ventures, Plural, and various angels, including the co-founders of companies like Roblox, Twitch, and King Games.
Netflix told TechCrunch the startup’s team of around 20 people will be joining the company, including the founders Rainer Selvet, Haver Järveoja, Kaspar Tiri, and Timmu Tõke. It doesn’t have an estimate of how long it will be until avatars launch. Nor does it detail which games or types of games will be first to get avatars.
Following the acquisition, Ready Player Me will be winding down its services on January 31, 2026, including its online avatar creation tool, PlayerZero.
Image Credits:Ready Player Me
“Our vision has always been to enable avatars and identities to travel across many games and virtual worlds,” Ready Player Me CEO Timmu Tõke said in a statement. “We’ve been on an independent path to make that vision a reality for a long time. I’m now very excited for the Ready Player Me team to join Netflix to scale our tech and expertise to a global audience and contribute to the exciting vision Netflix has for gaming.”
Netflix’s gaming shift
Netflix’s deal represents the company’s changing approach to games.
When it moved into the market four years ago, the company offered mobile games to its subscribers, who would log in using their Netflix accounts. At the time, Netflix explained that it saw gaming as another new category, similar to its other expansions into original films, animation, and unscripted TV.
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