MMO project led by ex-WoW designer may reportedly lose funding from NetEase

NetEase is tightening the purse-strings on an MMO project codenamed "Ghost". Ghost is under the purview of Greg "ghostcrawler" Street, who was once World of Warcraft's system designer, who now owns Fantastic Pixel Castle, the studio developing the game. However, according to anonymous accounts from a Bloomberg report, it is "under the risk of losing funding" from its main investor, NetEase.

This is dire news for the studio, which is still years away from going public with the ambitious MMO; but it's not lights out for project Ghost yet.

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Project Ghost reportedly had an initial budget of $100 million

According to the report, two correspondents from Project Ghost labelled Greg Street's MMO as a $100m project, and that they are now looking to trimming that budget. However, a NetEase spokesperson also disputed the $100m price tag -- the studio and the investors may not have been on the same page regarding this.

While NetEase's plans of pulling or cutting funding from project Ghost isn't public, they also did not outright deny the claims, citing that it was standard industry practice to re-assess the viablility of a game:

“It is both standard industry practice and our responsibility as a business to regularly assess the progress, viability, and potential success of all of our games and studios, and to make decisions based on those business considerations.”

Co-incidentally, project Ghost also recently released its first live demo this month. This is the first hour-length gameplay footage from Ghost, having been in development for roughly two years now. Similar to Ashes of Creation, they choose to market it in collaboration with popular MMO streamers - including Josh Strife Hayes and CohhCarnage.

At any rate, NetEases alleged hesitation from continuing to seed the project may be related to industry-wide issues rather than any demerit inherent within Greg Street's vision for this MMO.

Despite the roaring success of Marvel Rivals, NetEase saw a 2.6% decrease in quarterly gross profit per its December 2024 report. Plus, things are rough in the MMO-land, with the unceremonious cancellation of Elder Scrolls Online devs' unnamed in-development title still fresh in the market's memory.

If Fantastic Pixel pulls through this ordeal, Ghost may finally pick up the baton from the recently-deceased Dauntless.

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