Marvel Rivals has passed 40 million players, as NetEase reports net revenue of $2.9 billion
The Marvel-themed hero shooter has been a huge hit for NetEase
Marvel Rivals has now surpassed 40 million players, NetEase has announced.
Announced during NetEase‘s financial results on Thursday, the company said the hero shooter topped Steam‘s global top sellers charts in December, and saw 10 million registered users in its opening three days across all platforms. The game returned to the top of the chart in January following the game’s season 1 update.
Elsewhere in its financial results, NetEase announced that games and related services net revenues were RMB21.2 billion (US$2.9 billion) for the three months ended December 31, an increase of 1.5% compared with the same quarter of 2023.
NetEase announced the results days after it laid off several developers, including the game’s director.
Earlier this week, NetEase’s California-based game director Thaddeus Sasser claimed that an unspecified number of Marvel Rivals’ American developers had been let go, including himself.
In a statement to VGC, NetEase said that it “recently made the difficult decision to adjust Marvel Rivals’ development team structure for organizational reasons and to optimize development efficiency for the game.”
When Marvel Rivals released its first season last month, the game saw 644,269 players play the game concurrently, launching it to number 14 in Steam‘s all-time highest concurrent player counts.
This is higher than other popular titles like Apex Legends, Path of Exile 2, Helldivers 2, and GTA 5.
These results arrive as it’s believed NetEase could be scaling back its development efforts in North America – claims which the company has denied.
Last month, it was confirmed NetEase had split from Vancouver-based Worlds Untold, the studio it founded with Mass Effect writer Mac Walters in 2023, as well as Seattle-based Jar of Sparks, the studio founded in 2022 by Xbox veteran Jerry Hook.
