It seems that the U.S. government's war against ByteDance — owner of TikTok — has resulted in a bit of collateral damage. Second Dinner's free-to-play digital card battling game Marvel Snap has been taken offline as a result of the U.S. law aimed at ByteDance, which required the Chinese company to divest TikTok or face a ban.
Refusing to cave into U.S. demands to divest, the ban on the the popular social media app ultimately went into effect on Sunday, January 19th. And it seems that other apps owned by ByteDance have also been affected, including Marvel Snap.
"Sorry, Marvel Snap isn't avaliable right now," an in-game message reads, greeting players in the U.S. upon logging in.
"A law banning Marvel Snap has been enacted in the U.S.," the message continues."Unfortunately, that means you can't use Marvel Snap for now. Rest assured, we're working to restore our service in the U.S. Please stay tuned!"
The digital card battling game set in the Marvel Universe is developed by Second Dinner, a studio based in California. However, the game is published by Nuverse, a subsidiary of ByteDance, making it subject to the same shutdown order.
In a post on social media, Second Dinner revealed that they were surprised that Marvel Snap has been taken down. The developer assured that Marvel Snap "isn't going anywhere" and that they are working to get the game playable in America once again.
There have been reports that U.S. gamers have also been unable to play or access other downloaded games from Nuverse, including Land of Empires: Immortal, Land of Empires: Dice Hero, and Mission EVO. Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Mobile Legends: Adventure, One Punch Man: The Strongest, and other games from Moonton, another Chinese video game developer and publisher owned by Nuverse, have also been affected. As of this writing, these games have been removed from U.S.-based app stores.
Unlike TikTok, many of the people who play these games — and have possibly spent money on in-game currencies or cosmetics — were given little, if any, notice that these games would be impacted by the ban. It's possible that many were unaware these games were even owned by ByteDance to begin with.
There is a possibility that TikTok and these other ByteDance-owned apps could be restored. President-elect Donald Trump has said that he would "most likely" give TikTok a 90-day reprieve from the ban after he takes office on Monday, January 20th.
TikTok acknowledged that promise in its own in-app statement that reads:
"A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can't use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned."
For years, U.S. officials and lawmakers claimed that TikTok's ties to China posed a national security risk; but, last year Congress finally passed a law forcing TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell its stake in the app or face a ban in the United States. Many thought this would only apply to TikTok, but clearly that's not the case. It remains to be seen what will happen to those who spent money on these other games if they do not return to app stores.