Marvel -Rival was a great success for Netase. The Chinese publisher recently reported that the free-to-play hero shooter had over 40 million players. But the surveillance Clone was almost canceled because of the license fees that the Disney company would owe to the use of its popular comic characters.
This is after one New report from Bloomberg This describes some of the “volatility” of the game giant last year. According to the report, Netease founder and CEO William Ding almost took the project because he has “objections to the payment of Walt Disney Co. for the use of popular characters such as Wolverine and Spider-Man”.
Apparently he even went so far that the developers of the game at some point swap in their own heroic draft, which ultimately cost millions in unused work, even though Netease denies this characterization. A spokesman for the company told Bloomberg That it has had a “close partnership” with Marvel since 2017.
The reported tumult Marvel -Rival Before the start, shows how different things could have been. While the underlying game is fun, it is difficult to say whether its well-known multiplayer gameplay would have been hit in the same way, unless the striking designs for household symbols from the X-Men to the incredible hulk.
Of course, it is also well documented how expensive license offers can be at Disney. Materials that are leaked in the malicious Insomniac Games Hack in 2023 pointed out to the potentially hundreds of millions The studio would be Disney in the sale of several debts X-Men Games planned in the coming years. Last autumn, CEO by Microsoft Gaming, Phil Spencer, told Game file He is “not the biggest fan” of licensing offers, partly because of the problems that can create in the long term for setting games in streaming services or maintaining their availability.
Whatever the friction was there while Marvel Rivals' Ultimately, the development did not prevent the game from coming out, although it is reportedly part of a broader shift within Netease, since the company withdraws on gaming investments. That includes the one Shocking layoffs of Marvel -RivalDeveloper at the beginning of this weekWhen the entire part of the part of the team based in Seattle was released (the “Kern” team remains in China.
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