Image: Nuverse
The temporary ban of TikTok has led to Marvel Snap’s unexpected shutdown.
TikTok went offline in the United States for roughly 14 hours over the weekend, due to a new law that was enacted by the U.S. government to ban the app. Its temporary removal had some unforeseen consequences however, as parent company ByteDance also chose to remove access to all of its services in the U.S. at the same time.
Among these services was Marvel Snap, a popular digital card game that went offline in the U.S. without warning on Sunday. No one seemed to have seen this coming, including the game’s developer Second Dinner.
Marvel Snap temporarily goes offline due to TikTok ban
Last weekend, TikTok went offline in the United States, in what proved to be a temporary country-wide ban of the app. While the app came back online within 24 hours of the ban, other ByteDance services have stayed offline - including subsidiary companies Moonton’s Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and Nuverse’s Marvel Snap.
On Sunday (1.30pm MYT), game developer Second Dinner confirmed on Marvel Snap’s official Discord channel that the game had gone offline. The developer wrote: “Unfortunately, Marvel Snap is temporarily unavailable in U.S. app stores and is unavailable to play in the U.S. This outage is a surprise to us and wasn't planned. Marvel Snap isn’t going anywhere. We’re actively working on getting the game up as soon as possible and will update you once we have more to share.”
Second Dinner clearly hadn’t seen this coming, and it’s no wonder too. With 61% of its revenue coming from the United States (as of 2023), the developer likely depends on the region having access to Marvel Snap to ensure a healthy stream of incoming revenue. With the game now gone, it’s all hands on deck to get things back up.
The game remains offline at the time of writing, but Second Dinner posted a second update to its Discord channel earlier today (9.39am MYT), assuring players that it was still working on getting the game back up: “We've been working around the clock to bring MARVEL SNAP back up in the U.S. and hope to have it back online within 24 hours. We'll update you once it's back up. In the meantime, global players should be able to continue to play with no issues.”
Additionally, the developer acknowledged that many players “are missing out on time-based content, rewards, and Missions,” and will be “compensated for their lost time.” Whenever the game comes back online, U.S. players can rest assured that they won’t lose out on limited-time content because of its sudden suspension.
Both Marvel Snap and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang are currently unavailable in the U.S.
