Marvel Rivals has been a massive win for NetEase Games. The superhero game has already amassed 40 million players, setting the stage for its big Season 1.5 update, but according to a recent Bloomberg report, the game was almost scrapped.
NetEase reportedly considered canceling the game entirely because CEO Ding Lei (William Ding) didn’t want to pay Disney for the rights to use Marvel’s characters. The report claims that NetEase even tried to sidestep the issue by telling artists to “swap in their own hero designs,” a move that ultimately cost the company millions of dollars before they stuck with Marvel’s characters.
The report paints a broader picture of turmoil within NetEase Games. Ding has been aggressively cutting costs, which has led to hundreds of layoffs, the closure of multiple studios, and a pullback from international investments.
Just last week, NetEase fired a Seattle-based development team working on Marvel Rivals, with one of those let go reportedly being the game’s director. Meanwhile, other NetEase-backed studios—including Ouka (Japan), Worlds Untold (Canada), and Jar of Sparks (U.S.)—have either shut down or are scrambling to find new publishers.
According to Bloomberg, Ding has set a high bar for future projects, pushing NetEase to avoid games that “are unlikely to generate hundreds of millions of dollars per year.”
Despite these reports, a NetEase spokesperson denied that Marvel Rivals was ever on the chopping block, pointing to the company’s longstanding partnership with Marvel since 2017.
But as NetEase pivots away from big-budget risks, other projects are looking shaky. The company’s first U.S. studio, Jackalope Games, is reportedly working on a Warhammer MMORPG, but with NetEase “actively shopping around more of its non-Chinese studios” (according to Game File), the game’s future is now in question.
Despite these behind-the-scenes shake-ups, Marvel Rivals is still thriving. Even after last week’s layoffs, NetEase successfully launched its Season 1.5 update, introducing The Thing and The Human Torch as playable characters and teasing the arrival of Blade.
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