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Marvel Rivals developer NetEase Games has now confirmed that it has "made the difficult decision" to lay off a number of its US-based team members.
Reports about layoffs hitting the Marvel Rivals team – despite its enormous success since launch – first surfaced yesterday after game director Thaddeus Sasser posted on LinkedIn, saying: "My stellar, talented team just helped deliver an incredibly successful new franchise in Marvel Rivals for NetEase Games [...] and were just laid off!" In a statement sent to GamesRadar+, NetEase Games confirms that this has impacted a design team in Seattle.
"We recently made the difficult decision to adjust Marvel Rivals' development team structure for organizational reasons and to optimize development efficiency for the game," the statement reads. "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."
Prior to this, over in the official Marvel Rivals Discord server, community manager James stated that "there's only one director, and that is Guangguang [Guangyun Chen]," which is a tad confusing since Sasser bills himself as game director on his LinkedIn. Perhaps the message that the community manager wanted to get across was that Chen's position as creative director remains unchanged, something which the official NetEase statement has also clarified.
"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," it reads. "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."
Separately, community manager James addressed those "worried that we would lose our western audience touch" as a result of the layoffs in Seattle. "Our team has weekly meetings with the Marvel Team every week, and communicate on a daily basis," he states.
Considering the sheer popularity of Marvel Rivals, it's a massive shock to see the team affected in this way, and it goes to show just how much the games industry is struggling right now. A recent Game Developers Conference (GDC) report found that out of around 3,000 respondents, one in 10 developers were laid off in the past year.
