The popular digital card game Marvel Snap was unexpectedly affected by a U.S. ban on TikTok. The game is back online now, but it might not stay that way.
The original ban, part of a law called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, started on January 19, 2025, to ban TikTok. Since Marvel Snap’s publisher, Nuverse, is owned by ByteDance (which owns TikTok), the game became unavailable for players in the U.S. This caused a two-day outage, during which players couldn’t access the game, leading to frustration among fans. The developer, Second Dinner, said the outage took them by surprise, and it was working to fix the issue.
Marvel Snap’s future depends on ByteDance divesting (at least part of) TikTok to another company, the US giving up on the ban, or Nuverse being sold to another company. If TikTok goes down again, Marvel Snap goes with it. The new administration’s argument is that it’s important to save U.S. jobs and not give them to China. I was a moderator for TikTok during COVID, so I know that there are a lot of jobs in the U.S. for those at the company. However, we knew that Germany was a place where U.S. videos were moderated as well, so not every job for TikTok is here in the U.S., at least during COVID.
Marvel Snap’s future may depend on the owners of TikTok agreeing to this deal, but the developers are already working to fix this. Second Dinner chief development officer Ben Brode announced on the game’s official Discord, “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 ban won’t be back into effect for at least three months, giving time for many changes, but it’d take time to see.
When President Donald Trump took office, he signed an executive order that temporarily paused the enforcement of a ban on TikTok and other apps owned by ByteDance for 75 days. This pause allowed the game Marvel Snap to return to U.S. players, but we’ll have to wait and see what happens as this pause continues.
Source: WSJ, The White House (1, 2), Marvel Snap Discord
