NetEase (NTES) stock was down on Thursday after Guanguang spoke about criticism of Marvel Rivals. In a recent Rivals Assembled interview, the creative director was asked about claims that Marvel Rivals is a “gooner game.” This is a term in the gaming community used to refer to a game that sells on its sex appeal, attracting what are called “gooners.”
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When asked about these claims, Guanguang responded, “Because our design is inspired by classic comic themes, including some very outstanding skins, like Mantis and also Psylocke’s Vengeance, these all come from classic comic designs, and we create some more fashionable designs based on them to gain players’ appreciation. I think this also reflects the broad recognition from our players.”
Marvel Rivals has faced controversy in the past over its scantily clad characters, especially the women. Even so, the game has performed well since its launch. It hit an all-time high of 644,269 concurrent players on Steam around its launch, and regularly pulls in more than 100,000 concurrent players a day. This doesn’t take into account players on the Epic Games Store, Sony’s (SONY) PlayStation 5, or Microsoft’s (MSFT) Xbox Series X/S.
NetEase Stock Movement Today
NetEase stock was down 2.41% on Thursday, as some 1.36 million shares traded, compared to a three-month daily average of about 629,000 units. However, the stock was still up 50.15% year-to-date and 49.77% over the past 12 months.
Is NetEase Stock a Buy, Sell, or Hold?
Turning to Wall Street, the analysts’ consensus rating for NetEase is Moderate Buy, based on five Buy, four Hold, and a single Sell rating over the past three months. With that comes an average NTES stock price target of $134.55, representing a potential 2.16% upside for the shares.
