Marvel Snap Game Shuts Down Due to TikTok Ban Bill

The TikTok divestment or ban bill came for Marvel.

In a surprise side effect of the bill that forced TikTok to disappear on Saturday night, the digital game Marvel Snap is also offline. The game was developed by American independent game company Second Dinner Studios, in collaboration with game publisher Nuverse.

Nuverse, however, like TikTok, is owned by Chinese conglomerate ByteDance. Nonetheless, the game’s developers were caught off guard when the game was taken offline.

“Unfortunately, Marvel Snap is temporarily unavailable in US app stores and is not available to play in the United States. This outage comes as a surprise to us and was not anticipated,” Second Dinner Studios said in a statement. “Marvel Snap not going anywhere. We are actively working to get the game available as quickly as possible and will update you as soon as we have more to share.

Marvel Snap launching in 2022 to positive reviews (it was also nominated for a BAFTA Game Award) and sees players “compete in an online Marvel Universe with digital card games containing special powers”, according to the company.

When visitors opened the app or went to the Marvel Snap website, it displayed a message that the game was “currently not available in your country or region”.

Marvel, of course, is owned by The Walt Disney Co., although the closure of Marvel Snap It is unlikely to have a significant impact on the company’s results. The company licenses its intellectual property, including Marvel Comics and Marvel Cinematic Universe characters, to a number of game developers for different games.

TikTok went dark in the United States on Saturday evening as the divestment bill was poised to become law. Although the app is currently offline, the company wrote: “We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to restore TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!

Trump has indicated he wants to try to bring back TikTok, but in what capacity and by what means remains unclear.