Whoops.
Marvel Snap has been banned in the United States, a piece of collateral damage as a result of a larger United States TikTok ban. And while TikTok access has apparently already been reinstated, access to Marvel Snap has not.
The popular card-based Marvel tie-in is published by Nuverse, which itself is a subsidiary of TikTok owner ByteDance. It’s ByteDance and TikTok that were the main focus of the US’ new Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which came into effect from 19 January in the United States.
Much like with TikTok, users in the US that attempted to open Marvel Snap after this time received an error message which read, “A law banning Marvel Snap has been enacted in the US. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use Marvel Snap for now. Rest assured, we’re working to restore our service in the US. Please stay tuned!”
“Unfortunately, Marvel Snap is temporarily unavailable in U.S. app stores and is unavailable to play in the U.S,” said developer Second Dinner on Twitter. “In a surprise… Marvel Snap was affected by the takedown of TikTok late on Saturday, January 18th.”
The developer asserted that “Marvel Snap isn’t going anywhere. We’re actively working on getting the game up as soon as possible and will update you once we have more to share.”
Meanwhile, TikTok confirmed around 4.30 am AEDT on 20 January that, “TikTok is in the process of restoring service. We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive.”
Other impacted apps now inaccessible in the USA include Lemon8, CapCut, Gauth, Hypic, and Lark.
We’ll keep you updated as we learn more. The ban doesn’t impact the apps here in Australia, of course.
Update [21 January 2025]: Marvel Snap should be back online very soon, its developer has confirmed.
“We’ve been working around the clock to bring Marvel Snap back up in the U.S. and hope to have it back online within 24 hours,” Second Dinner wrote some 20 hours ago. “We’ll update you once it’s back up. In the meantime, global players should be able to continue to play with no issues.”
Marvel Snap is available on Windows PC, iOS and Android devices.
This post was originally published on 20 January 2025.
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