NetEase made waves in all the wrong ways when it decided to lay off developers at its Western Marvel Rivals studio despite the fact that the game was an absolute smash hit with over 40 million players to date.
Now, a fresh report by Bloomberg alleges that the Chinese company suffered many abrupt changes mandated by its founder and CEO, William Ding, who cut hundreds of jobs and suddenly pulled back its massive foreign investment. As a reminder, over the last few years, NetEase has invested in many studios based in North America, Europe, and Japan, such as:
Suda51's Grasshopper Manufacture (wholly owned)
Jar of Sparks (founded by former Halo and Destiny veteran Jerry Hook)
Jackalyptic Games (founded by former MMO veteran Jack Emmert)
T-Minus Zero (founded by former BioWare and Bethesda veterans)
Worlds Untold (founded by former Mass Effect lead Mac Walters)
Fantastic Pixel Castle (founded by former World of Warcraft veteran Greg Street)
Of these, Jar of Sparks and Worlds Untold already had their funding cut by NetEase a few months ago, and the heads are now desperately looking for another publisher and source of funding. Visions of Mana developer Ouka Studios was also shut down despite the game's launch to positive reviews. And now, other Japanese studios like Nagoshi's have just been given the time required to complete current projects. There won't be any additional funding or time allotted by NetEase, and the Chinese publisher has no plans to spend any money on marketing or promoting the games currently in production in Japan.
Other NetEase-backed Western studios on that list are also reportedly seeking new publishers, including Jackalyptic, which is making a Warhammer MMORPG (which we spoke to Jack Emmert about after its announcement). This game was recently shown at a trade event to partners and received a positive response, so there's hope it will find a new home.
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