Marvel Rivals was reportedly almost cancelled because the CEO of NetEase didn’t want to pay Disney for the licenses

Marvel Rivals is a big hit, but there was a time when its very existence was in doubt. That’s according to a new Bloomberg report on developer NetEase and its CEO William Ding, which says that before the game was released there were discussions about cancelling it outright. NetEase has denied the claim.

The problem, according to a source cited by the report, was that Ding didn’t like paying Disney, which owns Marvel, for the right to use its characters in the game. At one point, Ding reportedly asked artists to replace the Marvel superheroes with their own designs, which would’ve saved a few bucks on licensing fees but ended up costing NetEase millions because of the time and energy wasted on the effort.