Netflix has agreed to acquire the Estonian avatar-creation platform Ready Player Me, marking another step in the streaming group’s shift away from mobile games and towards interactive titles designed for television screens.
The deal, reported by TechCrunch, will see Netflix absorb Ready Player Me’s technology, allowing players to carry a single digital identity across different games and virtual environments. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Founded more than a decade ago by four Estonians – Timmu Tõke, Rainer Selvet, Kaspar Tiri and Haver Järveoja – Ready Player Me began as a fascination rather than a business plan.
“We were 20-year-olds from small towns in Estonia. We knew nothing about tech or startups, but we were obsessed with avatars,” Tõke said in a LinkedIn post announcing the acquisition. Over the years, the founders experimented with everything from hardware-based body scanners to personal avatar software before launching Ready Player Me more than five years ago.
The company went on to become a widely used tool during the boom in metaverse, virtual reality and web3 gaming, serving thousands of developers and pushing the idea of cross-game interoperability further than most competitors.
Ready Player Me has raised $72 million in venture funding from investors including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Plural, Endeavor and Konvoy Ventures, alongside angel investors such as the founders of Roblox, Twitch and King Games.
Netflix said that around 20 Ready Player Me employees would join the company. Of the four founders, only Selvet, the chief technology officer, will move into a role at Netflix. The others will not be joining the streamer.
For Netflix, the deal underlines a broader rethink of its gaming ambitions. Photo: Venti Views/Unsplash.
“I’m very proud of what we built,” Tõke said. “We’ve been on an independent path to make this vision a reality for a long time. Joining Netflix allows the technology and the team’s expertise to reach a truly global audience.”
Selvet echoed that sentiment, describing the acquisition as a chance to scale a long-held idea. “Our vision has always been to enable avatars and identities to travel across many games and virtual worlds,” he said. “Now we get to do that at a scale we could never reach on our own.”
Following the acquisition, Ready Player Me will wind down its standalone services. Its online avatar creation tool, PlayerZero, will shut down on 31 January 2026.
For Netflix, the deal underlines a broader rethink of its gaming ambitions. After entering the sector four years ago with mobile titles – an experiment that produced uneven results – the company has pivoted under its games president Alain Tascan, formerly of Epic Games, towards TV-based, party and narrative-driven experiences.
