Earlier today, some employees of the NetEase Seattle team posted on X and LinkedIn that they have been laid off. Team director, Thaddeus Sasser, and Level-designer, Jack Burrows, both expressed their feelings on social media. Despite the rousing success of Marvel Rivals, these layoffs have come as a surprise to the American team. But what’s actually going on?
What We Know
As of right now, NetEase hasn’t released a statement regarding the layoffs and it’s not clear if they have any plans of doing so. Much like other game companies, NetEase has a history of laying off developers once the game is up and running. It’s a classic move done by companies to downsize on employees they deem as no longer necessary to the maintenance of the game.
Contrary to what most sources on the internet are saying right now, The lead designer and Game director in charge of Marvel Rivals was not fired. The Game Director for Marvel Rivals is Guangyun Chen and the lead designers are Aden and Zhiyong and all three of them work for NetEase in China. It’s always been a weird concept that there are two teams, one China-based and the other being based in the US. It’s not clear whether or not the Seattle team was the main US team or just another branch.
So, who got laid off? As far as we know, Thaddeus Sasser and his team based in Seattle were the ones let go by NetEase. While we don’t know to what capacity they contributed and worked on Marvel Rivals, it’s a sad thing to happen. We are unaware of how many individuals actually got laid off, but we know from Sasser’s and Burrows’ posts that their whole team was let go.
From what we currently know, the Seattle team was most likely involved with the localization of the game for Western shores. This included translations, marketing, and system changes to better suit the western audiences. This is unfortunate but we don’t know what kind of impact this will have on the game or why NetEase has decided to downsize in the first place.
In-game Impact
From the recent dev update and patch notes, it doesn’t appear that these layoffs will affect the roadmap and content release of Marvel Rivals. NetEase’s reputation on the other hand may be dogged on a bit but again, we don’t know the reasoning behind the decision.
According to Niko Partners director of research and insights Daniel Ahmad, this move only impacts the Seattle-based team and not the core Marvel Rivals development studio, which is based in China. He notes that this is a “part of a broader reconsideration of NetEase’s overseas investments and studios,” as the company pulled funding from their partner studios and other projects.
“NetEase started its reevaluation last year, leading to funding being pulled/closures of studios in Japan and the US. The reevaluation, which is still ongoing, is being undertaken for multiple reasons,” Ahmad said. “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.”
It wouldn’t make sense for NetEase to let go of their lead developers or someone as important as a level designer. However, we can only hope that these lay-offs aren’t just the executives trading game quality for cash.
Unfortunately, lay-offs like these are common in the video game industry. No matter how much we praise NetEase for the success of Marvel Rivals, this is a sad reminder that they are a corporate entity in the end. While we did get a fun game to play, money will most likely be the deciding factor for any corporate decision.
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