As part of Netflix's latest earnings report, the streamer gave an update on its growing video game efforts, which include cloud-based TV games and mobile games. In short, the business is growing and showing positive signs, but it's still early days.

June 2026 saw the release of Netflix's two "most successful" launches ever for cloud games on TV with FIFA World Cup: Launch Edition and the horror game Unhinged, though Netflix did not share any specific datapoints about them.

The Netflix Playground app, designed for kids, saw 3x growth in daily players since it debuted in April this year. This new app has helped "engagement" for kids' mobile games from Netflix to surge 600% year-over-year, Netflix said.

"While off a small base, these early signals give us increasing confidence that we are building a foundation with exciting future growth potential," Netflix said.

The Netflix Games business is growing.

During an earnings call, Netflix co-CEO Gregory Peters said Netflix continues to be in the building stage for its video game efforts. “We’ve been building some solid foundations, and now we’re seeing exciting positive signals that help inform and give us increased conviction in our future growth and the nature of that growth here,” he said.

Peters went on to say that another “big positive sign” for Netflix Games has been its cloud-based TV games, which began to scale in earnest in October 2025. Since that time, “monthly active players for cloud games have increased 11x, and adoption is significantly ahead of that curve that we had for mobile games with even higher retention value,” he said. “So we’re definitely excited about that and focused on scaling up cloud games.”

Peters said the gaming market is massive, and Netflix is taking it slow as it defines a strategy and determines its investment levels.

"We're just getting started here. We're scratching the surface in terms of what we think the total potential of the space offers for us," he said. "You're going to see us continue to calibrate and refine our level of investment here, which is still very small relative to our overall content spend based on demonstrated performance based on what is working for our members and what's delivering returns to our business."

The next big Netflix game, Netflix Minigolf, launches on July 28, bringing together franchises like Squid Game, Bridgerton, and Stranger Things.

Netflix Games has endured a rocky road in recent years as it set out to establish a strategy. At one point, Netflix invested in AAA games, and hired big names, but those plans fell apart. Today, Netflix is more focused on social and party games that people can play quickly and easily. Netflix Games' narrative executive Sean Krankel told The Game Business that, in the next couple of years, he wants people to see Netflix as "natural" destination to play games, as opposed to it being perceived like it is today, as "experimental."

"I would love, in a year or two, for people to be going: ‘This is naturally the place that I would go to play a story’. And that ‘playing a story’ doesn’t sound weird," he said. "The ambitious thing here is that we create a new way of interacting with story and character that doesn’t feel like you have to be trepidatious or worried about trying it, or, ‘Am I going to be good at this?’"

"The same way that somebody’ll go to Disneyland and jump on a ride or go into an escape room, and it just becomes a new form of entertainment. That’s where I’d love to see this go," he added.

Creators of Backrooms-inspired liminal horror have been exposed to something far more terrifying than creepypasta fiction: takedown notices from their work. Users online are reporting that copyright claims have been issued against them by "A24 Films LLC," the production company behind one of this year's biggest movies.

On the r/backrooms subreddit, user GnarlyNet detailed their experience, saying that their Backrooms-inspired artwork received a copyright strike on the commerce site Redbubble. GnarlyNet's image design was derived from the original 2019 Backrooms image, not the movie, and other creatives are also feeling the brunt of A24's enforcement. Indie team Davilkus Games (via Kotaku) says that it was hit with three copyright strikes this month over its own liminal horror game project, resulting in its Google Play developer account being banned from the platform.

https://twitter.com/maywrence/status/2077507230631338424

In response to these complaints, Backrooms director Kane Parsons has said that he's investigating the issue. "I'm looking into this. Should not be happening," Parsons wrote on the subreddit.

So what's happening here? A24 is likely using an automated system that has resulted in mass copyright strikes being issued against users. While it's within its legal right to protect the Backrooms movie, the genre itself does not belong to any one person, as there have been numerous fan projects, artwork, and video games inspired by this particular brand of creepypasta content.

A24 hasn't won any fans either for its decision to sign a $75 million AI research partnership with Google's DeepMind, with many film buffs and fans blasting the deal. Parsons also weighed in on the drama, explaining on his Discord server that "those resources" would not be spent on Backrooms or any potential sequels. In case you missed it, Backrooms launched earlier this year and was a box office smash, making almost $375 million off of its $10 million budget. For his next project, Parsons is aiming to make a movie based on Valve's Portal game.

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 lead studio Infinity Ward has addressed claims that the game features an AI assistant. After retired Call of Duty leaker TheGhostOfHope labeled the Gunsmith assistant "Gunny" as an AI chatbot, Infinity Ward responded by saying that the virtual helper is a "hand-crafted" creation by the studio.

"Wrong (again.) Gunny is hand-crafted by our developers, not AI. It recommends builds based on the attachments you've unlocked for each weapon. It helps make quick loadout changes between matches," Infinity Ward wrote online. Like previous games, the Gunsmith mode in this year's Call of Duty is designed to help players fine-tune their loadouts for various combat scenarios, whether that be equipping a weapon with quick-snap optics for close-quarters or outfitting a sniper rifle for maximum accuracy over extreme distances.

In an online post, one user showed off some footage of Gunny in action, and how it provided recommendations to the player while reminding them to keep grinding so that they could unlock more attachments. As you might surmise from Infinity Ward's response to TheGhostOfHope, there's no love lost between the studio and the leaker, who has prompted several Call of Duty studios to respond to their reports and dismiss them for being inaccurate.

This all came to a head in March this year, when Activision demanded that TheGhostOfHope stop leaking information, as they were causing problems even when they were proven to be inaccurate. TheGhostOfHope agreed and now keeps a watchful eye on Call of Duty with their comments. While Gunny doesn't appear to be an AI creation, Call of Duty has experimented with generative AI in the past. Last year, Activision admitted to using AI as a means to "help develop some in-game assets," and the controversial technology has been used in Modern Warfare 3's Yokai's Wrath DLC and holiday-themed content for Black Ops 6.

Activision claims that while AI tools were also used in the development of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, humans handle the creative process, and that none of that content made it into the game.