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In 2021, Netflixs executive vice president of game development Mike Verdu made a big announcement: Let the Games Begin. Four years later, Verdu is outand Netflixs grand experiment in gaming still feels like a work in progress. Netflix bet big on gaming. They brought in Verdu from Facebook and EA, and then went on a buying spree, acquiring a handful of mobile gaming studios like Boss Fight and Night School. But, by the end of 2022, only about 1% of the Netflix subscribers were actually playing its games. At the time, co-CEO Ted Sarandos said that gaming had a bunch of positives even if growth was slow: These are small numbers, were good with that. (Netflix declined Fast Company‘s request for comment.) But, after years of stalled development and only a handful of successes, Netflix is pivoting. Theyve canned multiple games that were in development, and gutted entire departments like experimental video. Netflix is, once more, recalibrating its approach The stunted rise of Netflix gaming Gaming looked like Netflixs next big frontier. The interactive Black Mirror: Bandersnatch was a hitdespite a prolonged legal battle Netflix eventually settled. At the time, The Verge called Netflixs gaming push the company’s secret sauce for continued domination. They started to buy up major game developers, and even built an in-house studio for themselves. This initial voyage had its snags. Their rollout of games varied between different devices. The initial crop, which included two Stranger Things-themed games, was available on Android only. Netflix teased that iOS support was “on the way,” frustrating Apple users. And, since Apple bars third-party apps from operating as its own gaming market, Netflixs iOS rollout demanded users download their games as stand-alone applications. It took two more years for Netflix to open up gaming availability on TVs. While Netflix started by releasing a variety of themed and original games, they quickly leaned hard into IP. In 2023, Sarandos pointed to a gaming adaptation of reality show Too Hot To Handle as a major success. That game has since been given two sequels. Theyve also released gaming spin-offs of shows like Love Is Blind and The Queens Gambit. To date, their most successful game is an adaptation of Squid Game. Then came the cuts. Netflix built an internal AAA studio (codenamed “Blue”)but reportedly shut it down in 2024 before releasing a single title. The company then delisted almost all of their interactive titles. Bandersnatch, once a beacon of hope, is now one of the last of its type remaining. In January, Netflix shelved six upcoming games. Verdu, once the leader of this new department, took on a new title of VP of GenAI for gaming, before leaving the company entirely. Can Netflix pivot? Netflixs gaming division isnt deadbut its entering yet another reboot. In 2024, just before Verdu transitioned to his AI-focused role, Netflix announced a new hire. Alain Tascan of Epic Games joined as a new president of games. Tascan is now making changes to his team internally. They’ve also pivoted away from a mobile-first approach, now opening up the possibility of cloud gaming on smart TVs. Netflix has also had some recent successes that suggest possible longevity. Squid Game: Unleashed, which was released with season two of the hit drama show, racked up 42 million plays by the end of 2024. Netflix touts that Unleashed was the #1 Free Action Game in 57 Countries. The WWE mobile games will also be exclusively available through Netflix in fall 2025 with their content deal. After years of slow starts and sharp pivots, Netflix still hasnt proven games belong in its subscription model. The next few years will test whether Tascan can turn things around.
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E-Commerce
Purdue Pharma asked a bankruptcy judge late Tuesday to consider the latest version of its plan to settle thousands of lawsuits over the toll of the powerful prescription painkiller OxyContin, a deal that would have members of the Sackler family who own the company pay up to $7 billion.The filing is a milestone in a tumultuous legal saga that has gone on for more than five years.Under the deal the family membersestimated in documents from 2020 and 2021 to be worth about $11 billionwould give up ownership of the company in addition to contributing money over 15 years with the biggest payment up front.Family members resigned from Purdue’s board, stopped receiving money from the company, and ceased other involvement before it filed for bankruptcy protection in 2019 as it faced lawsuits from thousands of state and local governments, plus others.The new entity would be run by a board appointed by state governments, and its mission will be to abate the opioid crisis that has been linked to hundreds of thousands of deaths in the U.S. since OxyContin hit the market in 1996. The first wave of deadly overdoses were tied to OxyContin and other prescription drugs, and subsequent waves have involved first heroin and more recently illicit versions of fentanyl.This settlement plan was hammered out in months of mediation involving groups that sued Purdue, and nearly all of them are supporting it, according to mediator reports filed in court.Approval would take at least several more months.A previous version had bankruptcy court approval but was rejected last year by the U.S. Supreme Court because it protected members of the Sackler family from civil lawsuits even though none of them filed for bankruptcy protection themselves.Under the new version, plaintiffs will have to opt in to get full shares of the settlement. If they do not, they can still sue Sackler family members, who agreed to put in about $1 billion more than under earlier plans. The Sacklers’ cash contribution would depends in part on how many parties join the settlement and on the sale of foreign drug companies. Some of the money they put into the settlement is to be reserved to pay any judgments if they are sued and lose; but if that doesn’t happen, it’s to go into the main settlement.Members of the family have been cast as villains and have seen their name removed from art galleries and universities around the world because of their role in the privately held company. They continue to deny any wrongdoing.Other drugmakers, distribution companies, pharmacy chains and others have already reached opioid lawsuit settlements worth about $50 billion, according to an Associated Press tally. Purdue’s, which would also include about $900 million from company coffers, would be among the largest if finalized.The deals require most of the money be used to fight the opioid crisis.Purdue’s is the only major one that also provides direct money for victims potentially more than $850 million total in pools for people who became addicted, their families and babies born in withdrawal. That figure is more than in the previous incarnation.The deadline to apply for a piece of those funds passed years ago. In earlier versions, individuals were expected to receive between about $3,500 and $48,000. Families were split over the deal.Purdue would also provide millions of documents to a repository that would make them public. The company has also been producing a low-cost version of naloxone, a drug that reverses overdoses. Geoff Mulvihill, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
Since the term design thinking took off in 2000, the once boutique industry of design became a household term. Spurred on by the stratospheric growth of Apple after the iPhone launch in 2007, businesses invested untold sums purchasing design companies and building design proficiency in-house. The cherry on top arrived when McKinsey published a report in 2018 cementing the value of design in leading businesses cross-sector. And then? For the last several years, the design industry has quietly lost some of its luster. Weve published multiple stories examining how the world of business broke up with design, while a generation of design leadership has grappled with the effects. Truth be told, the reality is more complex. Design is still vastly more present within companies than it was decades ago, but it’s certainly been deprioritized during a business cycle that’s championing technology and marketing. Things look so bad because, for a moment, they looked so good. At Chicagos The Future Of conference in early March, dozens of design leaderschief design officers, VPs, and other high ranking designers at companies including P&G, 3M, Ford, J.M. Smucker, Verizon, Duracell, Whirlpool, and GE Healthcaregathered to respond to the provocation: Is Design Dead? My favorite moment was when design teams from Coca-Cola and PepsiCo formed an impromptu circle mere feet from a careful assortment of each companys products on ice. Consultant John Gleasonwho organized the conference alongside David Butler (Coca-Colas first VP of design) and industry vet Fred Richardskicked things off by sharing some disquieting data. In analyzing hundreds for Fortune 500 companies, he found that 39% had cut the top one to two levels of their design organization, downgrading the level or title of heads of design. Nine percent had eliminated half of their design team in the last year. And in 84% of all cases, design reported not to the CEO, but to a specific function (like marketing) or functional executive. And in 74% of those cases? The head of design was not even reporting to the head of their functional unit. [Photo: Andrew Boynton] I was invited as the only journalist to attend the conference, to both share my perspective on stage and listen in to private, frank debates about the state of design and its future. Given the sensitivity of corporate perspectives being shared, I agreed to Chatham House Rule reporting. In other words, I could publish themes and even quote what was said, but for the protection of everyone, nothing will be attributed to anyone. [Photo: Andrew Boynton] Here were my 10 takeaways from two days of talks, though I would offer a significant caveat: Most designers in attendance worked for CPG companies, meaning this information is heavily biased toward that industry, versus what we might hear from technology, UX, product, interior design, etc. For the tl;dr version, let me say: Design is a practice as old as humankind. It can never and never will die. But for the industry to re-achieve its peak relevance, the practice needs to evolve, think bigger, and maybe go get that MBA already. 1. Yes, design is hurting at a lot of companies Companies have slashed back and demoted their design practices. With definite exceptions in the room, the general consensus was that designers were struggling to be relevant, and even have jobs, at their companies. Its a shitshow out there, one person put it, bluntly, while another offered that design is not healthy. 2. Designers blew their big moment Out of 2010, the investment big in design teams promised true business innovation. When one panelist challenged the room to cite a major breakthrough design generated in this era, they were met with crickets. We were sexy, one person put it, but the farther you ride, the farther you fall. The solution to earning back credibility in the meantime is that designers need to do less with less, another suggested, taking a more surgical approach to projects that could meet needs in the business. 3. Were in a down cycle One of the most commonly recurring themes from the panels were about cycles of investment. That for whatever reason, were in a down cycle of design. I agree with this argument, and presented a take of my own: We are in a technological cycle and a marketing cycle. Gen AI drove the need for immediate investment in core technological capabilities. Mature social media (TikTok in particular) rewarded rich investment in data driven marketing campaigns. And in the meantime, design was deprioritized as a less essential job during years of cost cutting layoffs. However, designers will ultimately be the ones that turn AI into functional products, and there are only so many marketing collabs Gen Z will buy before they, too, prioritize more meaningful consumption, and sustainability (hopefully) becomes a global priority again. But for now, companies are abandoning climate pledges to build AI data centers. 4. Designers sell their practice without solidifying their value One theme I noticed was that designers in the room that still boasted rich investment from their companies proselytized the quantifiable impact of their workoften tht they saved their company money, or measurably added brand equitywhereas most admitted that designers were poor at articulating the ROI of their own practice. But you know who is great at talking ROI? CMOs. Marketing leaders can outline their strategy. Design leaders cant, someone said. No wonder design has trouble competing with marketing on solutions. These days, many design teams are answering to a CMO, which is a failure of designers self-marketing inside the company. As one design leader pointed out, they see three paths forward: One, marketing takes over design. Two, marketing and design share responsibilities. Or the third, where marketing reports to design. To most designers, the third option is the most idealbut it also might be the most sustainable for business. Design as a broad practice can contain marketing, while marketing does not naturally contain the umbrella of design. 5. Designers have failed to speak the language of business Why dont designers keep the ear of the C-suite? Enough designers dont speak the language of business, one person put it, flatly. And over two days, several people pointed out that designers simply do not know the proper lingo to be taken seriously inside companies. Designers tend to be spreadsheet adverse as they hang their hats on liberal arts. Especially at large organizations, most business units will be run by MBAs and traditional, business-minded people. This mismatch creates friction to sway a CEO, sure, but the issue compounds as designers really need buy-in from cross functional teams to make things happen. Our gift is synthesis, which is why we need to bring in our own data, said one leader. I spend all my time building relationships [across the company] to get to that data. 6. Design thinking has undercut the value of design Over two days of talks, I witnessed all variety of reaction to the term design thinking. But especially with the fall of Ideothe mecca of design thinkingits clear that the term has often become shorthand for, what an IDEO partner once framed to me as enabling a theater of innovation. Its a methodology to problem solving akin to the scientific method, and its every bit as intelligent as the person wielding it. Yet the design industry has spent two decades rallying behind the term, leveraging it to get buy-in from companies that used it to teach everyone how to think like a designer. But Design thinking is not design, and theres a huge disservice done when educating business on how to run a design thinking session, said one panelist. Namely, it cheapens the practice of design, commoditizing a craft to something you learn over a box lunch. If the height of the [design] curve was the Ideo shopping cart video, we may be in the pit of despair right now, joked another. Not everyone at a company is a designer. Just like they arent all an accountant. Or an IT specialist. 7. Maybe design needs a new name There is no vagary what someone means when they tell you they are an architect. But what does a designer conjure? A million possible things. The term design is a problem, says one expert, noting that weve tried being more specific with CX and UX but each permutation comes with its own costs. The term ‘interior design’ is more limiting than effective, they posit. The terms seem either too big, or too small, for designers to fit any definitional impact. 8. Designs lack of diversity limits its reach Weve reported on the lack of diversity within design for the last decade and, over that time, the numbers havent measurably improved. Noting the majority of whiteness in the room, one designer said, We design for people who dont look like most designers. Ill admit some disappointment by how shocked some in the room were at this statement. (Should we really be surprised to contemplate that design is too white in 2025?) But that doesn’t make it any less true. With the current administrations attacks on DEI, diversifying design is only a greater uphill battle. However, design representation isnt just a path toward equality; its a path toward understanding the needs and desires of more customers. 9. Corporate reorgs kill design strategy Whether its a new CEO or a completely new org chart, the increased instability of business drives an instability of the design practice. Ive had seven reorgs in four years, one designer lamentedwho was not the only one to share such a sentiment during the week. But why is this bad for design? As many echoed through the conference, designers think well in the medium- to long-term, strategizing for the future. When that lead time is disrupted through a change in leadership or a reorgor even just the quarterly whims of Wall Streetany true long-term design strategy cannot take off. As a point of example, CEO Bracken Darrell was cited as turning around Logitech in four years alongside designer Alastair Curtis. And now, as the two have landed VF Corporation, theyve charted a decade-long strategy. 10. Design is still better off than it was 25 years ago While design may be in something of a corporate slump, I continue to believe in its unequivocal value. And I do think its worth taking a little rewind through history. Design was not something most people knew about 25 years agoespecially in the U.S. The corporate world only got its first chief design officer in 2010, when Mauro Porcini (now of PepsiCo) took the position at 3M. We dont know the half life of a CDO yet, one leader pointed out. A CEO is about four years, a CMO is about two years. The truth is that, while design is an impossibly old practice across culture, its serious role within business is still nascent.
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E-Commerce
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