Last week, Netflix all-but-announced it was getting into video games after hiring Mike Verdu, formerly of EA and Facebook/Oculus, as "vice president of game development." Bloomberg reported, "the idea is to offer video games on Netflix’s streaming platform within the next year… the company doesn’t currently plan to charge extra for the content."

The idea of an entertainment streaming service going into a completely different genre without charging extra was certainly eye-catching. This week, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and Chief Product Officer Greg Peters talked about the venture in a conference call with Netflix stockholders, offering some clarity on the goals of Netflix moving into games.

Entertainment writer Julia Alexander was on the call and reported some of the statements in a Twitter thread. In essence, Hastings and Peters clarified that the games venture is not intended to be profitable but to expand the service Netflix offers at no extra charge. Hastings said:

We know fans of those stories [core IP] is they want to go deeper. Interactive can provide an in-depth world to explore…we also feel our subscription model yields some opportunity to support some game experiences that are underserved by the dominant monetization models.
We don’t have to think about ads, we don’t have to think about in-game purchases, or other monetization, we don’t have to think about title purchase…we can just be laser focused on creating the most entertaining game experiences that we can.
We’re finding that a lot of game developers are really into that idea and focus and just putting their energy into great gameplay without worrying about those other considerations they’ve had to trade off instead of just making compelling games.

The idea certainly attracted interest online, as social media users wondered just how groundbreaking this could be.

Netflix might possibly be changing the game once they start with these video games being free for subscribers

Unsure if pun was intended or not… probably not

— Crypto Rich 👽 (@RJ_Orlando12) July 21, 2021

All major video game companies should be taking the #Netflix threat seriously: $EA $TTWO $ATVI $ZNGA $GME #investing pic.twitter.com/DzNzpqhpOS

— Genia Turanova (@GTuranova) July 21, 2021

There is no timetable yet on when we'll see Netflix expand into video games, so we don't know when the venture will launch or what it will look like.