NetEase reward US-based developers of live service hit Marvel Rivals by sacrificing their jobs to "efficiency"

rockpapershotgun.com:

Marvel Rivals is this year's current free-to-play PC game success story, attracting many millions of players over its opening weekend and making regular appearances in the Steam Most Played top 10 ever since. It garnered an estimated $136 million in January. So naturally, it's time to start laying people off.

Last night, one of the project's game directors, Thaddeus Sasser, revealed that an undisclosed number of US-based NetEase Games employees had been dismissed, including level designers Gary McGee and Jack Burrows. NetEase have now confirmed the news, calling it a move to "optimize development efficiency" and assuring players that they "are investing more, not less, into the evolution and growth of this game". Just not so much the people working on it.

"This is such a weird industry..." Sasser wrote in a LinkedIn post last night. "My stellar, talented team just helped deliver an incredibly successful new franchise in Marvel Rivals for NetEase Games...and were just laid off! Oh well! Times are tough all over - Let's find these incredible people new jobs, because we all need to eat, right?"

In that post, Sasser named McGee as one of the departing team members. Burrows has announced the loss of his job separately. "Was an enormous pleasure to work my American coworkers who join me in this sad culling," he wrote. "Just couldn't dodge that big boot, I guess, no matter how big the success of the gig."

The cutbacks appear to be part of worldwide cost-cutting at NetEase, who are headquartered in China. Last November, they pulled funding for Worlds Untold, the studio co-founded by former Mass Effect developer Mac Walters. Last month, they also broke up with Jar Of Sparks, the studio co-founded by former Halo Infinite head of design Jerry Hook. And just this week, we learned of layoffs at Liquid Swords, founded by former Just Cause creative director Christofer Sundberg.

Some more context: the average cost of living and, by extension, the average salary in the USA