Scoop: Netflix’s first gaming boss exits, following 2024 leadership shift

Plus: Some key changes for this year's Game Developers Conference

A sampling of Netflix’s games, from the mobile app. Screenshot: Game File

Mike Verdu, the executive who led Netflix’s foray into gaming before changing roles at the company last year, is no longer at Netflix, a rep for the streaming giant confirmed to Game File.

Verdu joined Netflix in 2021 to launch its game offering. That effort included the release of dozens of new or ported mobile games for paying Netflix subscribers, as well as the creation of a formidable internal game development operation through the purchase and start-up of several studios. (Read my 2023 interview with Verdu about Netflix’s “patient” bet on gaming.)

While Netflix’s gaming efforts are ongoing, Verdu’s involvement had been waning.

Last year, Netflix pivoted—or focused, depending on who you ask. In July, the company brought in former Epic, EA and Ubisoft exec Alain Tascan to helm the gaming division.

Verdu was not immediately out when his successor arrived. Four months ago, he announced he’d taken on a new role as VP of Generative AI for games at Netflix. It’s unclear what has become of that role.

Verdu did not return a request for comment by press time.

Since Tascan took the reins, Netflix’s gaming operation has seen major changes. Last fall, the company shut down Team Blue (the studio that was developing the company’s first AAA game). It has nixed several previously announced game releases. And Verdu’s most senior colleague on the gaming team, Leanne Loombe, who ran third-party relations with outside game makers, left for Annapurna in January.

Netflix execs keep talking up their gaming plans in quarterly calls with investors, most recently teasing additional emphasis on couch co-op party games as well as games that tie in to Netflix shows. The company launched a Squid Game video game in December. That game skipped the Netflix subscriber requirement to allow all mobile users to play it.

Netflix will have a presence next week at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

---

---

Item 2: GDC, but different

Next week’s Game Developers Conference will still see thousands of game makers head to San Francisco for a week of talks and networking.

But there will be some notable differences for reporters like me: changes in the periphery that may be a sign of the times and will alter the mix of stories that usually, reliably emerge from the event. Three companies that usually have big GDC presences scaled back this year…

• Epic Games, which has hosted a tech showcase during GDC for as many years as I can recall, is not doing one this year. Its presentation, dubbed the State of Unreal, will instead run as part of the company’s Unreal Fest in June.

• Ubisoft will have a significant presence in terms of its developers speaking at dozens of talks. But the company is not running one of its annual press-only tech presentations. These have been an annual GDC staple for years, including in 2024, when the company invited reporters to see its work on gaming non-player characters whose speech was powered by generative AI. Ubisoft hasn’t said why it’s skipping, but given the company’s myriad woes and desire to generate press attention next week on the March 20 launch of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, it’s not hard to guess.

• Nintendo, which usually sends some of its top developers to deliver talks—and which has hosted an indie showcase event for press and game developers in recent years—isn’t doing any of that for this year’s show. The likely reason: The company’s focus on Switch 2 and its looming April 2 full reveal. (Last year’s Nintendo indies event at GDC led to this story and this story.)

---

Item 3: In brief…

🇫🇷 A trial for three former Ubisoft executives accused of psychological and sexual harassment of employees began in France on Monday but was adjourned until June 2 at the request of lawyers in the case, AFP reports.

• A French video game union is asking the court to compel Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot and one of its HR leaders to “stand trial for complicity,” though neither is directly accused of misconduct, Deadline reports.

• Ubisoft has repeatedly declined to comment on the case in France, stating, as a rep did to Deadline, that it “is not a party to the legal proceedings” and “have not received any specific information about it.”

👀 Epic has been sued by parents over alleged “deceptive practices” in Fortnite’s virtual shop and the shop’s effects on children worried about missing out on in-game items, Polygon reports.

• An Epic rep told Polygon that the suit “does not reflect how Fortnite operates.”

🌨️ Blizzard’s previously-annual fanfest, BlizzCon, will be held in Anaheim in September 2026, the company said today.

• BlizzCon was held 13 times between 2005 and 2019, but it’s been spotty since. The show missed 2020 due to the Covid pandemic, was online-only in 2021, was in-person in 2023 and skipped 2024 and 2025.

• In other Blizzard news, Diablo IV is going to get harder in its next season, the company said Friday (Read my recent interview with Blizzard’s Diablo chief, Rod Fergusson, about the challenge of pleasing hardcore and casual players alike.)

🧱 Lego is looking to build up its in-house game development capabilities, VGC reports, citing a Financial Times interview with the company’s CEO.

💬 Sony is experimenting with using its characters as AI chatbots, according to leaked footage of a senior Sony engineer demonstrating an AI-powered conversation with Horizon character Aloy, The Verge reports.

🤔 Studio ZA/UM, the studio behind acclaimed 2019 role-playing game Disco Elysium, has announced its next project, a spy RPG dubbed Project [C4], though many of the chief people behind DE are no longer involved, Kotaku reports.

🍎 Apple is touting that a new Katamari Damacy game, Katamari Damacy Rolling Live, will launch on Apple Arcade in April, and says it is the first new entry in the franchise in eight years.

• While there have been some remakes of the great ball-rolling-up-stuff series, KDRL will indeed be the first new game since 2017’s Amazing Katamari Damacy, a game even series fans may have missed. AKD was an endless runner and was deleted from existence in 2021. (Maybe not so endless after all.)