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NetEase cutting more jobs and games, JP studios told to wrap it up

BennyBlanco

BennyBlanco

aka IMurRIVAL69

After years of expanding overseas, video-game billionaire William Ding is hitting the brakes at NetEase Inc., the pioneering Chinese company behind hits like Eggy Party and its newest blockbuster Marvel Rivals.

Ding, 53, who founded the company and is chief executive officer, has cut hundreds of jobs, closed or idled game studios and pulled back on international investment as he refocuses on a smaller portfolio of titles. He reasserted his leadership with a series of dramatic decisions over the past year, according to people familiar with the company's inner workings who asked to not be identified.
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Outside Ouka, NetEase-funded Japanese creators — Nagoshi among them — have been given time to wrap up ongoing projects. The message from headquarters in Hangzhou has been that there'll be no additional funding or time, the people said. There's no plan to spend on marketing or promoting the games currently in production in Japan.
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Stolen from the purple boys. Sucks for Nagoshi. I wonder if his project ever sees the light of day. He should just go back to RGG.
 
nial

nial

Member
This little era of international companies investing in Japanese (or overseas in general, for that matter) development seems to be slowly coming to an end.
In the context of China, who can really blame them? 2024 seeing smashing successes coming from their home scene like Black Myth: Wukong and Marvel Rivals is convincing these companies more and more that the key will always be investing in local development.
 
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nial

nial

Member
But before it was released, there were discussions about it being canceled, one of the people said. Ding objected to paying Walt Disney Co. for the use of popular characters like Wolverine and Spider-Man, and at one point asked his artists to swap in their own hero designs. That ultimately aborted effort cost the company millions of dollars and was emblematic of the abrupt changes ushered in by the CEO.
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What a fucking clown.
 
Felessan

Felessan

Member
Roman Empire said:
I wonder if Tencent will step up and swoop some of those talents? They did get people like Hideaki Itsuno after he left Capcom last year.
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Given current friction with massive trade wars looming over horizon - very unlikely.

Woopah said:
Chinese money for Japan is drying up, looks like normal business will resume.
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What business. Japan is heavy pressured by chinese games, and pulling support just mean even less money for japanese devs.
 
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Nickolaidas

Nickolaidas

Member
Why should they invest in western teams and IPs? Wukong, Stellar Blade, Snowbreak, First Descendant, Tide of Annihilation, Lies of P, Granblue Relink, Mecha Break, Wuchang - they have made and are making very successful games on their own and have no need of latching on to western IPs or dev teams. They have the ability to be local powerhouses and dominate the entire gaming market.

While western devs jack off to turds like Suicide Squad, Veilguard, Dustborn, Avowed and other crap, the Chinese and the Koreans are killing it. Though I'm pretty sure this may also be the result of the COVID-originated investing bubble finally bursting, when companies thought that people will be locked inside their apartments for the rest of their lives and would do nothing more than play video games.
 
M

Metnut

Member
Any money spent on licensing IP from marvel/disney and its ilk is leakage from the video game industry and I applaud any efforts to cut that down. Development costs are high enough these days without these massive payouts on top of that.
 
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nial

nial

Member
.Xeno said:
I know it wouldn't happen but I would like to see Sony start up a new Japanese studio with him.
Can only dream lol.
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Nagoshi always enjoyed a close relationship with SIE, but that was with the SIEJA (marketing, partners relations division in Asia) folks rather than WWS. It would be interesting to see, though.
 
yurinka

yurinka

Member
Kacho said:
I wonder where Nagoshi will go.
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Tencent, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Sega, Sony or other ones could hire him or acquire the team.

Who knows, maybe even MS with some pocket change that Phil may have in his jacket's pocket.

nial said:
This little era of international companies investing in Japanese (or overseas in general, for that matter) development seems to be slowly coming to an end.
In the context of China, who can really blame them? 2024 seeing smashing successes coming from their home scene like Black Myth: Wukong and Marvel Rivals is convincing these companies more and more that the key will always be investing in local development.
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Regarding Chinese companies, they have a huge internal market and are starting to be very successful outside, so I assume will prefer to invest in internal teams to compete against other internal teams.

And at the same time, I assume they may be conservative regarding potential economic wars that Trump (+ his 'alliy'/servant contries) may throw at China/Chinese companies in the mid term. After they end the Ukraine stuff, maybe US decides to fuck the Chinese companies who have assets like teams outside China. Specially what they did steal Russian money, assets etc. that Russian companies and people had outside Russia with the excuse of sanctions, or cutting their payments from and to Russia.
 
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Woopah

Woopah

Member
Felessan said:
Given current friction with massive trade wars looming over horizon - very unlikely.


What business. Japan is heavy pressured by chinese games, and pulling support just mean even less money for japanese devs.
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Chinese companies were trying to lure away Japanese talent with high investments. With that gone, that talent will return to working for Japanese publishers.
 
Cert.in.Death

Cert.in.Death

Member
Unfortunate, but that's business.
MS right about now:
Hungry I Want GIF
 
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