Marvel Rivals Maker Reassures Fans PS5 Hit Will Not Be Affected by Layoffs

The games industry never fails to surprise me by just how awful it treats the individuals and teams that make it a profitable industry to begin with.

Shame on Net Ease.

And with that news…Rivals will be deleted from my PS5.

I was legit flabbergasted when I heard this. Not even having a hugely successful game will shield devs from layoffs.

What on earth is Marvel Rivals?

USA studio will be expensive, they’ll be replaced by an Asian or Brazilian team at half the price.

This is the inevitable conclusion to every single live service game that comes out. It doesn't matter if the game is successful and good, or a failure and bad.
Live service itself is a plague on our industry on almost every level.

This industry is just f*cked. What incentives do any developer have to actually deliver a good product? Either way they’re being laid off.

F**k shareholders

Bruh it's a financial and critically reviewed success on such a massive scale this is ridiculous especially considering the amount of content updates they said they'll do

Didn't NetEase also shut down the Visions of Mana studio the day the game released? Sounds like they're gunning for the title of "Most Scummy Chinese Publisher." Tencent, watch your back!

Gotta update my list: You can now get laid off
-After you released a failed singleplayer game
-After you released a successful singleplayer game
-After you released a failed live service game
-After you released a successful live service game
-The day you release a game
-Weeks before you launch your game

Makes you wonder how long before people at Rockstar will be laid off after GTA6 comes out. I'd be willing to bet it will absolutely happen next year. As proven by this, not even a smash hit is enough anymore for some companies.

@wildcat_kickz Yes, yes it was indeed Net Ease...

They already have a winner. All they need to do now is routine updates adding a new character and some new skins and they could milk it for years. In the publisher's eyes they don't need the "dead weight" any more. A shame but this is what happens when you work for the big corpos. Job security is never guaranteed but the CEO will always give themselves a fat bonus.

People don’t wanna spend money on art, then act surprised when people lose their jobs. 🤷🏻

@BamBamBaklava89 Marvel Rivals made over $130 million in the first month alone. A free-to-play game, making that much money. I think the issue is a whole lot bigger than people not appreciating art.

Source:
https://gameworldobserver.com/2025/01/09/marvel-rivals-revenue-136-million-first-month-global

I'm starting to think there's a special circle of hell reserved for greedy investors.

That’s just mad, those poor devs. The game’s a success on so many fronts.

@nessisonett apparently they were responsible for building systems for game mechanics and running the backend now that it's all finished netease is focused on supplying more content and not new modes that involves more technical work

Really wish the entire world would stop using “laid off” when it’s obvious they mean fired and not a lay-off. Lay-offs implies going back to your job when the work picks up again. Think someone selling peanuts at a baseball game or life guards at a beach. Those people know they are getting laid off when the season ends, but they can apply again the following season. It’s meant like a layover at an airport between flights.

These people were FIRED. We really need to normalize saying that. Especially now as the class war has ended and we’re all being replaced by AI. We ain’t getting our jobs back.

#endofrant

Another day, another layoffs. They just wait for a game to be finished to sack people. This has nothing to do with success, they just don't want to pay people.

Is it still successful though? I played it once at launch and didn’t like it. It felt like another MultiVersus (huge numbers at launch and a massive drop in player count).

The tech industry as a whole is in such shambles, it sucks to be a dev right now. Mass layoffs and hiring freezes have been the norm for a few years now. There’s a lot of factors at play.

I'm not defending this move but if you have a studio in Seattle that costs X amount and you can do the same thing in China for cheaper they will probably make that call.

@ItsBritneyB_tch The player counts on Steam are currently in the hundreds of thousands. 284331 as of the moment I type this.

So yes, it’s successful.

Sounds like the jobs that were laid off were temporary hires for the front end. Still…

@AlexPorto that’s a lot of gibberish to say that you simply just don’t like multiplayer games and hate that other people like to play games with others.

@rjejr Laid off is still the correct term. Fired usually only used when it the employee fault aka own performance issues or misconduct. Being laid off allows employees to retain benefits for a period of time, being fired does not allow that.

Laid off is also at the fault of employers, not employee

“ Lay-offs implies going back to your job when the work picks up again. Think someone selling peanuts at a baseball game or life guards at a beach”

That would actually be more akin to Furlough

@nomither6 Just correcting someone’s misapprehension. Just because one person tries a game and doesn’t like it, people have the tendency to think everyone agrees with them. Wanted to set the record straight!

So literally no one's job is safe in the game industry except the people in the top! Actually is even worse than that, they fail and get rewarded for failing with bonuses and golden parachutes!

I think there could also be some US-China shennanigans going on here (just a reminder - Rivals is made by NetEase - a Chinese company)... there's little reason to downsize a game that popular, unless you (a) already got what you wanted from them - entry into a Western market; or (b) you wanted to send a message. Unless there's something rotten going on behind the scenes, this doesn't make sense other than if it was intentional.

really classic our country company strategy, if you do the job so well and even work well without you, then you will be layoff.

Marvel Layoffs. Game is now deleted.

The rest of the title:

"Marvel Rivals Maker Reassures Fans PS5 Gigahit Will Not Be Affected by Layoffs" until the player numbers drop slightly and the rest of the team get laid off as punishment

"No, no, dont worry Marvel fans! We'll continue investing in the game so you can continue feeding us microtransaction money! We're simply optimising the money filter from paying employees to paying shareholders!"

Already bored of it went back to overwatch weeks ago

I wish I could say I expect the user base to turn their backs on the game in response to this callous behaviour.

For context: How many support studios continue to exist after helping the game launch? And is there a difference between games as a service and a game that is considered complete upon release?

@EfYI I deleted the game from my PS5 and series X, and when U told a friend at work about the situation they also nuked it off their series X.

So at least two people have!

@EfYI
Other than your usual keyboard warrior I honestly doubt it will move the needle. In fact negative reviews stayed stable.

If people actually read the post of someone who stated that they were no longer working for Netease, it would only be to design the game world destruction method. They also were not under Netease but a separate studio. Netease won't be hurt by people saying they are going to delete the game and the misleading backlash that's being received. I'm anti-capitalism, but people were misled by the media, including PS, sucking this up.