NetEase celebrates Marvel Rivals success by sacking director and staffGameCentralPublished February 19, 2025 10:27amUpdated February 19, 2025 10:27am Marvel Rivals success is no protection from the bean counters (NetEase Games)Despite being the most successful new live service game in years, Chinese owner NetEase has laid off the American developers responsible for Marvel Rivals.Online shooter Marvel Rivals is consistently in the top five most played games on Steam, often with over 300,000 concurrent players, and has been a massive hit on consoles too, with over 20 million free downloads.Given how many live service games crash and burn almost instantly youd imagine Chinese publisher NetEase would be over the moon with its performance. They probably are but their reward for the American team that made the game is not what you might imagine.Game director Thaddeus Sasser posted on LinkedIn that, 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!Its unclear exactly how many people have lost their jobs, and NetEase has made no official announcement, but most of Sassers initial LinkedIn post is him trying to get level designer Garry McGee a new job.Welp, just got laid off from my job working on Marvel Rivals with NetEase, said fellow level designer Jack Burrows. Was an enormous pleasure to work with my American co-workers who join me in this sad culling. Just couldnt dodge that big boot I guess, no matter how big the success of the gig.Strange times all across the industry indeed, added McGee on LinkedIn.All of them refer to the ongoing series of layoffs that have swept across the games industry for well over a year now, in part as a result of companies over-staffing during Covid, when they thought (or at least pretended to investors) that the popularity of video games would remain the same once lockdown ended.Larger companies, such as Microsoft, Sony, and EA, have laid of hundreds, but that scale of cuts has subsided in recent months.More TrendingWhats especially baffling here is that Marvel Rivals is a live service game, so NetEase is going to be needing people to make new levels and other features for as long as its running.The only assumption can be that, now the games established, they want to do it cheaper in China but that seems extremely shortsighted given Sasser and his team have already proven themselves.The move may be the result of a wider shift at NetEase, as its made a number of cuts at its various Western studios recently, with Jar of Sparks (founded by Halo Infinite designer Jerry Hook), Worlds Untold (founded by Mass Effect writer Marc Walters), and Liquid Swords (founded by Avalanche Studios Christofer Sundberg) all suffering layoffs and being told to halt work.Over 25,000 game developers are thought to have lost their jobs since 2023 and, clearly, theres no end in sight. Its especially worrying as its made clear that making a highly successful game doesnt protect anyone from execs desperate for infinite growth at any cost. The purge continues (NetEase Games)Emailgamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below,follow us on Twitter, andsign-up to our newsletter.To submit Inbox letters and Readers Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use ourSubmit Stuff page here.For more stories like this,check our Gaming page.GameCentralSign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content.This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy