According to a report from Bloomberg, NetEase CEO William Ding nearly cancelled Marvel Rivals before its release, partly because of the fact that the game was based on Marvel Comics IPs. Ding reportedly did not want to pay Disney for the rights to use Marvel characters and attempted to convince the game's designers to create original characters instead in order to save on development costs. While a spokesperson for NetEase would deny these claims, other NetEase employees claimed in the same article that Ding was indecisive and would frequently change his mind on major decisions like these.