Success means nothing: some of the developers of the popular Marvel Rivals game were fired

Two months after the crazy launch of Marvel Rivals, the game's developers were laid off. It came as a shock to everyone because the team had created a successful franchise for NetEase.

Here's What We Know

On his LinkedIn page, Thaddeus Sasser, the game's director, announced the dismissal of an undetermined number of Marvel Rivals US developers, but did not directly say whether he was fired. "This is such a strange industry. My talented team helped create a hugely successful new franchise... and was just fired," he wrote.

Sasser also confirmed that level designer Gary McGee had been laid off, and another designer, Jack Burrows, also confirmed his departure. "Well, I've just been fired from my job on Marvel Rivals at NetEase. It was a great pleasure to work with my American colleagues who joined me in this sad reduction," he said.

It is known that the game was developed by teams in China and Seattle. According to Circana analyst Matt Piscatella, the game is currently one of the top five most popular games in the US by number of active users on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and Steam.

"It's been a huge hit and one of the few games that has been able to break through the wall of service games," Piscatella said.

After the launch of the first season last month, the game reached a record of 644,000 concurrent players, which allowed it to enter the top 14 all-time online games on Steam.

The layoffs come amid rumours that NetEase plans to cut all investments in North America. Therefore, it is likely that only the Chinese division will be involved in the game.

Source: LinkedIn