Why Marvel Rivals Laid off Their Entire US Team
Yesterday, February 18th, NetEase Games laid off the entire Seattle team that worked on Marvel Rivals. The news broke via Thaddeus Sasser on LinkedIn who posted the update.
“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! Oh well! Times are tough all over - Let's find these incredible people new jobs, because we all need to eat, right? :D”
Not all the names of those affected were revealed but Sasser started his first post by talking about Garry McGee, level designer for Marvel Rivals, and his accomplishments on the project.
Jack Burrows, another level designer for Marvel Rivals, also posted on his LinkedIn that he was laid off and is open to work with the hashtag “Ya can’t win them all.”
This news followed the post showcasing the next update coming to Marvel Rivals with the arrival of The Thing and Human Torch. They also announced a new map coming to the last half of season 1 which features Central Park taken over by Dracula, no doubt a new level created by Burrows and McGee.
The news comes as a shock after Marvel Rivals has been trending across the board as one of the top played games. Mat Piscatella, Executive Director & Video Game Industry Analyst at Circana, revealed charts across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and Steam that showed Marvel Rivals consistently in the top five.
Marvel Rivals was ranked number one on Steam charts in the US beating out CS2, Helldivers 2, Monster Hunter: Wilds, and Balatro. On Xbox, Marvel Rivals was ranked 4th behind Roblox, Fortnite, and Call of Duty. On PlayStation 5, Marvel Rivals was ranked 5th right behind NBA 2K25, GTAV Remastered, Fortnite, and Call of Duty.
NetEase posted a News Release on their Investor Relations site of their Third Quarter 2024 financial results and revealed that their net revenue for Q3 was $3.7 billion and their gross profit was $2.3 billion.
GameLook, a Chinese media outlet, was able to roughly estimate how much Marvel Rivals generated in revenue across its various platforms. Within the first month of Marvel Rivals releasing on Steam, PS5, two other Chinese-specific game clients, the revenue came to about $136.4 million.
Daniel Ahmad, director of research and insights at Niko Partners, posted more details on the layoffs by specifying the layoffs only impacted the team in the US and not the core team in China. Ahmad said, “It’s part of a broader reconsideration of NetEase’s overseas investments and studios. The firm has pulled funding from a number of overseas teams over the past year.”
“NetEase started its revaluation last year, leading to closures of studios in Japan and the US. The reevaluation, which is still ongoing, is being undertaken for multiple reasons. It’s a bad look for NetEase to layoff a successful team, no matter the reason or how small the team is. The previous layoffs or closures included studios where you could argue current performance / lack of results was the issue. Can’t make the same argument here.”
I fully agree with Ahmad’s take there. Even if the US Seattle-based team was small, around six people, they still provided valuable work on Marvel Rivals which is incredibly successful and generated a wild amount of revenue in just three months since it’s been out.
NetEase hasn’t said anything on their channels but actually gave IGN a statement just confirming the layoffs. “We recently made the difficult decision to adjust Marvel Rivals’ development team structure for organizational reasons and to optimize development efficiency for the game," NetEase said.
"This resulted in a reduction of a design team based in Seattle that is part of a larger global design function in support of Marvel Rivals. We appreciate the hard work and dedication of those affected and will be treating them confidentially and respectfully with recognition for their individual contributions.”
Then to add insult to injury, NetEase added, “We want to reassure our fanbase that the core development team for Marvel Rivals, which continues to be led by Lead Producer Weicong Wu and Game Creative Director Guangyun Chen in Guangzhou, China, remains fully committed to delivering an exceptional experience.”
“We are investing more, not less, into the evolution and growth of this game. We’re excited to deliver new super hero characters, maps, features, and content to ensure an engaging live service experience for our worldwide player base.”
Some fans seem to be relieved it was a smaller team laid off at NetEase but the layoffs still impacted a big part of the team. The Seattle NetEase studio wasn’t focused on localization but helping develop core components of Marvel Rivals. While the main developers in China may be “fine” this is still an incredibly awful thing to happen to the US studio.
Getting laid off without warning and then seeing that your previous employer is saying “Don’t worry, this won’t impact the game!” is a bit callous. For some of the players who have been posting “it wasn’t on the Chinese developer side, we’re good” I do ask you to reconsider what you’re saying because these are real people who lost their jobs doing real work on your most recent game fixation.
Hopefully these developers are able to land on their feet soon.
