After becoming an unlikely casualty of the short-lived TikTok ban in the U.S., Marvel Snap developer Second Dinner has taken steps to ensure nothing of the sort ever happens again.
The hit mobile game starring Marvel’s colorful cast of heroes and villains now has a new publisher in Skystone Games, Second Dinner announced on X this week. Skystone is a U.S.-based publisher that mostly works with indie developers. It most recently published the rogue-lite dungeon crawler Tyrant’s Realm.
The move comes just over a week after Marvel Snap was unceremoniously removed from smartphone app platforms. The app was removed after TikTok parent company ByteDance pulled the popular social media app and all of the apps belonging to its subsidiaries from U.S. digital storefronts. Marvel Snap’s former publisher Nuverse was among the companies affected by ByteDance’s decision.
While the ban ultimately lasted a mere 12 hours, it was a masterful way to get incoming President Donald Trump to stand staunchly against a ban he set in motion during his first term. While the president has made it known that he’s now against an immediate ban, he signed an executive order granting a 75-day extension to mull over national security concerns over the company and to give ByteDance a few weeks to find an American investor.
To avoid getting swept up in more of the ongoing TikTok drama, Second Dinner has separated entirely from Nuverse.
“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,” the developer shared on social media Tuesday night.
As noted by Second Dinner on the day Marvel Snap was removed from stores, developers with games published by Nuverse weren’t given notice about the sudden outage on Jan. 19. It left them scrambling to restore service. In the days that followed, Second Dinner has had to slowly roll out features like the game’s shop, Steam version, and in-app purchases over a few days.
To make it up to frustrated fans in the U.S., Second Dinner has promised a bountiful amount of rewards for affected players. This includes over 150 Random boosters, half a dozen premium mystery variants, and more depending on players’ Collection Level.
“We realize that many of you missed out on time-based content, rewards, and missions during this outage,” the developer wrote in a note to the community. “This disruption of service is more than just an unfortunate blip in our eyes. As such, we are not only committed to making up for this disruption, but we want to welcome back players, new and old, with some extra goodies to celebrate.”
While the ending of this saga is mostly a happy one for gamers, it all but spells a hard end for ByteDance’s efforts to break into gaming. The Chinese tech and media company invested big into gaming in 2019, hoping to compete with the likes of other big publishers like Marvel Rivals’ Netease and Tencent. After four years of investment, however, the company began backing out of the business. In 2023, it canceled projects in development, laid off staff that worked on gaming projects, and began selling off games in its portfolio like Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. The company then restructured its gaming arm “to center on long-term strategic growth areas.”
With its decision to suddenly cut the online services for the few games it’s still associated with, hindering developers in the process, ByteDance’s future in the industry looks unclear.
