ranzware
When TikTok was temporarily blocked in the US at the weekend, one of the unexpected knock-on effects was the simultaneous blocking of Marvel Snap, a CCG starring the usual gaggle of buoyant American superheroes. TikTok access was reinstated after 12 hours, but the game remained offline for another 12 hours.
Now it’s back (on PC at least: it’s still absent on smartphones at time of writing) which is good news for its California-based studio Second Dinner, and fans of card games and superheroes in general. But it may not be good news for Marvel Snap publisher Nuverse, which is a subsidiary of TikTok owner ByteDance and, as a result, clearly the source of this card game getting caught up in the mess.
In its announcement on X, Second Dinner was unusually straight-to-the-point: “MARVEL SNAP is back online in the U.S. But to make sure this NEVER happens again, we’re working to bring more services in-house and partner with a new publisher,” the official Second Dinner account tweeted.
“This is the start of a new era for MARVEL SNAP. We know this probably leaves you with even more questions than answers. We appreciate your patience, but in the meantime enjoy playing MARVEL SNAP.”
Maybe it’s just me, but it’s very unusual for a studio to signal its intent to leave a publisher when it is still—given the wording—in a working relationship with that publisher. These are unusual circumstances, though, and Nuverse and ByteDance haven’t been let off the hook yet: US President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social yesterday that TikTok’s US return is merely an extension of “the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect”.
During this extension, President Trump is seeking a “50% ownership position” for the US in TikTok. If a deal isn’t cut—and we currently have no idea what kind of deal this could be, whether between a private US company and ByteDance, or the US government itself—there’s every chance TikTok could disappear again, and thus, anything else that falls under the Nuverse mantle.
Marvel Snap is playable, but at the time of writing, in-app purchases “remain unavailable”, though these are expected to return shortly.
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Kurt Indovina
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