This week we have a classic case of the complex connection between one company and its multiple revenue streams, the geopolitical landscape, and how snap decisions can have some more wide consequences than first supposed. The congressional decision to ban TikTok in the US over concerns that the app’s owner ByteDance was sending American users’ data to the Chinese government was upheld by the US Supreme Court over the weekend, which saw the app get shut down as of this morning, just as the company said it would. But that decision has also affected ByteDance-published games – namely, the digital CCG Marvel Snap and the mobile multiplayer RPG Watcher of Realms.
Readers might recall that ByteDance’s game publishing arm Nuverse was winding down operations in 2023, with plans to end current game development and divest already launched games such as Snap. It would appear that despite those plans, Nuverse games that are still linked to ByteDance’s backend were also caught in the country-wide ban.
The sudden shutdown has taken both gamers and devs by surprise (for some reason?). Snap developer Second Dinner issued a statement to that effect, confirming that the mobile card game was indeed shut down but plans to come back online “as soon as possible,” while Watcher of Realms explained to players on Facebook that it was shut down “due to circumstances beyond [its] control,” provided links for players to download their game data and manage their accounts, and asked players to keep eyes on social media for updates.
Although the ban did go into effect immediately this week, it’s possible that ByteDance may find itself with a reprieve as the incoming administration has implied it’s considering enacting a 90-day reinstatement of TikTok in order for ByteDance to sell the video sharing app to an American owner as ordered by the US government. A decision is expected on Monday.
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…
— Second Dinner (@seconddinner) January 19, 2025
TikTok, for what it’s worth, is already coming back online with glowing praise for the incoming administration, which has apparently granted assurances that it will not be penalized for continuing to operate. Like clockwork, basically.
