Netflix has made its entrée into the gaming sphere official by hiring former Facebook and Electronic Arts executive Mike Verdu as VP of Game Development. Just how Netflix will choose to game is TBD, but Bloomberg is reporting that games will be hosted alongside series and features on the streaming platform. Netflix is hoping to have games running “in the next year.†Verdu previously worked on games such as The Sims and Plants vs. Zombies. Netflix has long considered gaming its major competitor, not other streamers. As Polygon points out, watching movies and concerts in-game has become a huge part of online gaming in the past few years.
On July 8, it was announced that Shonda Rhimes’s overall deal with Netflix has expanded to include feature films and games. “When Ted and I decided to break the traditional network TV business model to move Shondaland to Netflix, we were both taking a leap into the unknown,†Rhimes said in a statement obtained by Variety. Whether this “leap into the unknown†includes a Hunky Duke Dating Sim is, well, unknown.