Over January, Marvel Snap was taken off US App stores amidst a very public bust up between the US government and Chinese tech company Bytedance. However, today brings good news for American snappers, as the game is available to download yet again thanks in part to a new US-based publisher, as well as Marvel Snap developer Second Dinner bringing much of its operations and publishing work in-house.
Posted on offical Second Dinner socials including Twitter, the company explained exactly what happened internally to overcome this sudden shift in availablility. You can read that below, but in short, things should be all good for Marvel Snap for the foreseeable future.
“To ensure this never happens again, and with the help of our current publisher Nuverse (Thank you!), we’ve already signed agreements and started the work to bring almost all operational and publishing responsibilities in-house at Second Dinner with support from a new U.S.-based publisher, Skystone Games.”
“This has been a full-team effort between Second Dinner, Nuverse, Skystone and Marvel. Thank you again for all of your support—we’re excited about what’s ahead for MARVEL SNAP!”
Skystone Games is a company you may not have heard of before: it’s an indie publisher that appears to have swooped into help out Second Dinner and Marvel Snap. What likely made them a go-to collaborater in this internal shift in operations is the fact that Skystone is based in Belmont, California, which would certainly help circumvent any concern from US policy makers of Chinese ties, even if Second Dinner remains owned by Bytedance.
Second Dinner was certainly a big victim of the clash between Bytedance and the US Government, but social media platform Tiktok was the main arguing point that caused the ban. For months, US officials have been picking apart TikTok for any nefarious ties to the Chinese government as well as the sort of content it promotes to US citizens. An outright ban of the app almost happened, though that too has been worked out. The CEO of TikTok even went to president Trump’s inauguration.
While Second Dinner seems to have landed in a good spot, this may be just the first case of drastic action taken against Chinese-owned developers. It’s worth bearing in mind that Tencent remains on a US list of “Chinese military companies”, and it’s been spending big on founding new video game development studios and investing in others. Or, with Second Dinner and TikTok brought round the US table, maybe it’ll all work out okay. Time will tell, as we proceed through a shaky time in US global politics.
Are you happy Marvel Snap is back? Let us know below!
fbq('init', '1749355691872662');
fbq('track', 'PageView'); window.facebookPixelsDone = true;
window.dispatchEvent(new Event('BrockmanFacebookPixelsEnabled')); }
window.addEventListener('BrockmanTargetingCookiesAllowed', appendFacebookPixels);