Marvel Rivals Developer NetEase Hit With Layoffs

‘Marvel Rivals’, the hit hero shooter from NetEase based off the Marvel Universe, has laid off staffers at the US development studio in Seattle.

This includes the game director Thaddeus Sasser and others. 

In a post on LinkedIn, Sasser said “This is such a weird industry…” 

“My stellar, talented team just helped deliver an incredibly successful new franchise in Marvel Rivals for NetEase Games…and were just laid off!”

Marvel Rivals level designer Jack Burrows posted a similar message.

“Hey folks!” he wrote. “Welp, just got laid off from my job working on Marvel Rivals with NetEase. Was an enormous pleasure to work with my American coworkers who join me in this sad culling. Just couldn’t dodge that big boot I guess, no matter how big the success of the gig.”

This comes as a shock, as the hero shooter has a lifetime player count of 40 million players and counting since its December launch. In terms of money gains, this helped NetEase’s gaming and services revenue to go up to $2.9 billion in the quarter the game released.

Bloomberg later reported that these layoffs might have occured due to the wider cutbacks and layoffs happening at NetEase, with the Chinese studio cutting hundreds of jobs and closing studio.

The Chinese gaming giant is also divesting from studios and teams outside of China, as it seeks to curb expenditure.

The company’s CEO Walter Ding allegedly suggesting canceling the game due to the expensive licensing fee for Marvel’s superheroes and villains, and wanted to replace them with their own designs.

NetEase denied this saying the company has enjoyed a close partnership with Marvel since 2017.