Netflix announced it’s acquiring Ready Player Me, the avatar creation platform, which the streaming giant hopes to leverage soon with the rollout of user personas across Netflix Games.
The News
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, according to TechCrunch. It’s said however the Estonia-based startup’s team of around 20 people will be joining the company.
This won’t include three of the four founders: Haver Järveoja, Kaspar Tiri, and Timmu Tõke though. Only CTO Rainer Selvet is moving to Netflix, a spokesperson told TechCrunch.
“Our vision has always been to enable avatars and identities to travel across many games and virtual worlds,” Ready Player Me CEO Timmu Tõke said. “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.”
Additionally, Ready Player Me announced its taking avatar creation services offline starting January 31st, 2026.
Founded in 2014 in Tallinn, Estonia, Ready Player Me has allowed for users to create and export avatars across a variety of Web2 and Web3 platforms, including VR social platforms such as VRChat.
Over the past decade, the company has raised $72 million from venture capitalists a16z, Endeavor, Konvoy Ventures, Plural, and various angels, including the co-founders of companies like Roblox, Twitch, and King Games. Its most recent investment was in 2022, when the company closed its $56 million Series B.
My Take
Netflix hasn’t intimated it’s getting into XR gaming yet, so it’s pretty safe to say the Ready Player Me acquisition and subsequent shutdown is more or less a blow to one specific group of people: namely, VRChat users.
VRChat beginners looking to make their own avatars over the years were almost always pointed to Ready Player Me, with the platform even allowing users to upload a personal photo and generate a cartoony persona that was easy to mix-and-match with a variety of parts.
And while they weren’t always the most original avatars out there, it’s difficult to argue with the platform’s ease of use, as the web-based tool basically got you a (mostly) unique avatar that was not only cross-platform, but also already rigged for VRChat.
For now, VRChat only points users to two platforms: Ready Player Me and MakeAvatar. In addition to diving into make suites like Blender, those in the community also tend to get avatars by buying or finding them directly in-app, or finding them for free on platforms like VRCMods. Others rely on maker spaces like Gumroad and Booth for commissioned and pre-made avatars.
