William Ding - gamebastion.com

Marvel Rivals is a big hit, but there was a time when its very existence was in doubt. That's according to a new Bloomberg report on developer NetEase and its CEO William Ding, which says that before the game was released there were discussions about cancelling it outright. NetEase has denied the claim.

The problem, according to a source cited by the report, was that Ding didn't like paying Disney, which owns Marvel, for the right to use its characters in the game. At one point, Ding reportedly asked artists to replace the Marvel superheroes with their own designs, which would've saved a few bucks on licensing fees but ended up costing NetEase millions because of the time and energy wasted on the effort.

A NetEase rep who denied the allegation said NetEase and Marvel have had a good working relationship since 2017, but even so you can see why Ding might have given thought to breaking free. I'm sure those Marvel licenses don't come cheap, and with live service games being notoriously unstable ground on which to plant a flag, reluctance to sink major money into one, especially given the outcome of Marvel's Avengers, is understandable.

Of course, Marvel Rivals is a big hit—it recently surpassed 40 million players—and in hindsight, cancelling it or cutting the licensed lineup would've been a major misstep. But the Bloomberg report says that sort of waffling has been a hallmark of Ding's leadership in recent years: Changing his mind frequently about ongoing projects and cutting support for games in development or shutting them down entirely.

That's been visible in North America: Even though Marvel Rivals is riding high, NetEase laid off developers working on the game at its Seattle studio, and ended funding for the recently-launched Worlds Untold and Jar of Sparks studios. But the Bloomberg report says the cuts are also taking a toll in China, to the point that NetEase studios in the country may not release any major games in 2026.

Ding also apparently wants NetEase to

William Ding