At a time when Netflix is reportedly circling a high-profile deal involving Warner Bros. Discovery, the streaming giant has quietly made another move that says far more about its long-term gaming ambitions. Netflix has acquired Estonia-based gaming startup Ready Player Me, continuing its gradual but deliberate push deeper into interactive entertainment.
While the financial details remain undisclosed, the intent is becoming clearer. Netflix is buying infrastructure.
Ready Player Me specializes in cross-game avatar technology, allowing digital identities to move across different titles, engines, and platforms. This kind of middleware doesn’t grab headlines, but it solves one of gaming’s most persistent problems: fragmentation.
Ready Player Me CEO Timmu Tõke framed the acquisition as a natural evolution of the company’s long-term vision:
Our vision has always been to enable avatars and identities to travel across many games and virtual worlds. 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 Reset, Continued
Netflix has never hidden the fact that its gaming strategy is experimental. That experimentation has come at a cost. The company has already pulled back from ambitious AAA projects and shifted focus toward mobile-friendly, social, and party-style games that better align with its subscriber base. This even includes Netflix’s consideration of buying out EA.
The Ready Player Me acquisition fits neatly into that reset.
Instead of competing head-on with traditional console publishers, Netflix appears to be positioning gaming as an extension of its platform: frictionless, identity-driven, and tightly integrated with its content universe.
Netflix confirmed to TechCrunch that Ready Player Me’s 20-person team will join the company, though only CTO Rainer Selvet will transition into a formal executive role.
One of the most telling outcomes of the deal is what happens next: Ready Player Me will shut down its standalone services on January 31, 2026, including its PlayerZero avatar-maker tool.
This effectively ends Ready Player Me’s role as a neutral, cross-industry provider, a notable shift for a company that counted Ubisoft, Lenovo, and Nvidia among its clients.
In other words, the technology is no longer being built for everyone. It’s being built for Netflix.
The Bigger Picture
Netflix’s gaming journey has been uneven, but not directionless. The company is slowly assembling the building blocks needed to create a closed-loop gaming ecosystem, one where identity, discovery, and engagement live inside Netflix, not outside it.
Avatars that travel across games may sound like metaverse-era thinking, but in Netflix’s hands, they serve a simpler goal: reducing friction and increasing retention. If players don’t need to start over every time they try a new game, they’re more likely to stay within the platform.
The Ready Player Me acquisition won’t transform Netflix into a gaming powerhouse overnight. But it reinforces a clear strategy shift: Netflix no longer wants to make “big” games. It wants to own the rails that smaller, scalable experiences run on.
Read more mobile games industry content: