The founder and CEO of NetEase, William Ding, almost cancelled Marvel Rivals entirely, according to a new report

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.

Following an extremely sudden cut to the Marvel Rivals development team, it appears NetEase is going through even larger internal discussions about releasing an

Marvel Rivals has been a huge hit for NetEase. The Chinese publisher recently reported the free-to-play hero shooter had over 40 million players. But the Overwatch clone was almost canceled over the licensing fees the company would owe to Disney for using its popular comic book characters.

Marvel Rivals was nearly canceled by NetEase's founder before its release, a source reportedly close to the game's publisher claims.

According to a recent Bloomberg report, NetEase came close to cancelling Marvel Rivals entirely because it didn’t want to pay Disney for the use of its iconic Marvel heroes and villains.

NetEase's Marvel Rivals can't be described as anything less than a hit, netting ten million players in just three days from launch and raking in millions for developer NetEase in the weeks since. But a new report suggests that NetEase CEO and founder William Ding nearly canceled the game due to a reluctance to use licensed IP.