Netflix is buying Estonian startup Prepared Participant Me, an organization creating “cross-game avatar tech” that enables gamers to deliver their digital personas with them to totally different video games, the corporate’s CEO Timmu Tõke shared in a LinkedIn submit. The acquisition is a part of Netflix’s new video games technique, which places an emphasis on approachable multiplayer titles and variations of the streaming service’s IP.
Prepared Participant Me’s staff of round 20 staff will likely be integrated into Netflix’s employees, TechCrunch writes, although Tõke is the one one of many startup’s 4 founders who will proceed on after the acquisition. Neither firm has shared when the avatar tech will likely be integrated into Netflix’s video games or what video games will assist the function once they do.
In addition to designing its avatar system to be straightforward for builders to implement of their video games, Prepared Participant Me’s massive pitch for his or her system is utilizing AI to robotically redesign avatars for various video games’ artwork types and “robotically match belongings to any avatar rig or topology with out guide work.”
Netflix has taken a number of totally different approaches to video games in the previous few years, however currently, the corporate has actively retreated from AAA growth and its extra bold initiatives. Apart from the premiere of its tackle HQ Trivia, Netflix’s previous few sport bulletins of 2025 had been targeted on a group of streamable social gathering video games, and a partnership with FIFA to launch a brand new soccer sim in 2026. All of these initiatives might assist avatars in a single type or one other, now Netflix simply must resolve how.