Netflix’s ambitious gaming boss wants to “make history,” says recent cuts weren’t to save money

PLUS: Netflix's most interesting (and thoughtful) upcoming game. And a mysterious update about Netflix’s Assassin’s Creed.

Netflix head of gaming, Alain Tascan, with moderator Terri Schwartz, at a panel in San Francisco last month. Photo: Netflix.

“All of this is talk,” Netflix’s second-ever head of gaming, Alain Tascan, told me as we wound down an interview a couple of weeks ago in San Francisco.

“At the end, we will be judged on what we’re putting out.”

The reason I was interviewing Tascan during a packed week of Game Developers Conference—and the reason you may have already seen interviews Tascan did with other reporters—is because he and the team at Netflix want you to know that they’re into this for the long haul.

And they know why you might be skeptical.

There’s the fact that Tascan is the second-ever in his role (the first-ever recently left the company). There’s the canceled projects and, last fall, the closure of Netflix’s nascent AAA game studio. All of this just a few years into Netflix’s gaming experiment, which has yet to demonstrate a consistently successful strategy.

So GDC was a moment for Netflix to say, no, Netflix Gaming is not going the way of [insert any of the many Netflix series that were cancelled quickly] or [insert “Google Stadia”].

GDC was Netflix’s moment to do something about the negative buzz and outline their ambitions. They had legitimately interesting gaming plans to discuss, mixed in with some obvious moves you’d expect Netflix to make. And Tascan had strong answers for my questions—well, for most of my questions.