Marvel Netease’s rivals cannot be described as a hit, which is ten million players in just three days of the premiere and graphing in millions for the developer Netease during weeks. But the modern report suggests that the general director and founder of Netease William Ding almost canceled the game because of reluctance to apply the licensed IP.
Report Comes from BloombergAnd describes the current situation in Netease: Ding actively limits jobs, closes studies and withdraws from investment abroad. The goal, according to the report, is a smaller, stronger wallet that can stop the last decrease in growth and compete with the rivals of Tencent and Mihoyo.
Part of this shrinking, informs Bloomberg, almost included the cancellation of Marvel’s rivals. According to one source, Ding did not want to pay for the apply of licensed Marvel characters and instead tried to convince artists to apply the original projects. An attempt to cancel allegedly costs a net of millions, but the game was released for current success.
However, shrinking continues. At the beginning of this week, we learned that the Marvel Rivals Seattle team was released and the company claims that it was for organizational reasons. ” Over the past year, Ding has stopped investing in foreign projects, previously intensively invested in Japanese and Western studies, such as Bungie, Devolver Digital and Blizzard Entertainment. The report suggests that Ding believes that games that will not generate hundreds of millions a year are not worth the time of the company, although the company spokesman told Bloomberg that Netease does not set “any general numbers to determine the profitability of a modern game.”
Employees talking to Bloomberg also painted a portrait of problems internally in Netease, focusing around the volatility of Ding as a leader. According to this account, Ding quickly makes decisions and often changes their minds, forced the staff until late work, recently hired many recent graduates in outstanding leadership roles and allegedly closed so many projects that Netease cannot spend any games in China at all next year .
Withdrawal from Netease with Games Investment appears during constant uncertainty in the game industry, especially in the West. Many years action Mass exemptions, cancellation and studio closed, as well as many steep and noisy games, despite the high expectations of the company.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior Ign reporter. You can find her post on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.skyla. Do you have a hint with history? Send it to ralentine@ign.com.
