Netflix will soon let customers create their own customised gaming avatars — which will travel across the streamer’s collection of titles — through the acquisition of Ready Player Me, an avatar-creation platform from Estonia, reported TechCrunch.
After shifting its gaming focus towards TV-based games, Netflix is acquiring Ready Player Me. The company plans to leverage the startup’s development tools and infrastructure to create avatars, enabling Netflix users to carry their personas and fandom across different games.
“Our vision has always been to enable avatars and identities to travel across many games and virtual worlds,” said Ready Player Me CEO Timmu Tõke. “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,” added Tõke.
One founder will join the Netflix team
Four years into their games journey, Netflix is proud of the progress made so far and remains committed to providing members with even more ways to be entertained on the platform, a Netflix stated.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Ready Player Me had raised €61,4 million ($72 million) in venture backing from investors, including a16z, Endeavor, Konvoy Ventures, Plural, and various angels, including the co-founders of companies like Roblox, Twitch, and King Games.
The startup’s team of around 20 people will be joining the Netflix company. Of the four founders Rainer Selvet, Haver Järveoja, Kaspar Tiri, and Timmu Tõke, only CTO Rainer Selvet is moving to Netflix. Following the acquisition, Ready Player Me will be winding down its services on January 31, 2026, including its online avatar creation tool, PlayerZero.
Netflix does not have an estimated launch date for avatars, nor does it specify which games or types of games will be first to get avatars.
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