Marvel Mobile Game Goes Dark After TikTok Ban: How Disney’s Superhero Brand Got Caught Up In US Vs. China Battle Marvel Video Game Shut Down: How Disney Got Caught Up In TikTok Ban - Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS)

A highly publicized ban of TikTok by the U.S. led to other apps getting caught in the crossfire, including a game featuring Marvel superheroes. Here's a look at what happened and what the executive order signed by President Donald Trump means for the game's future.

What Happened: The Supreme Court recently upheld a ban on TikTok in the U.S., following a congressional ruling that parent company ByteDance would have to divest the U.S. division of the company by Jan. 19.

While TikTok went dark briefly over the weekend, an executive order signed by Trump provided an additional lifeline for ByteDance for 75 days.

Along with TikTok going dark on app stores from Alphabet Inc GOOGGOOGL and Apple Inc AAPL as part of the pending ban, other apps owned by ByteDance companies also disappeared from the stores and for a brief time were unusable.

This includes Marvel Snap, a mobile collectible card game that features characters from the Marvel Universe. The game was developed by Second Dinner and published by Nuverse, a ByteDance subsidiary, in 2022, as reported by USA Today.

The game uses Marvel characters from the comic book company owned by Walt Disney Co DIS.

A search for Marvel Snap on the Google Play Store Tuesday brought up other Marvel titles with the app still unavailable for download. Existing owners of the app saw service restored in the U.S, as reported by The Verge. The ban also impacted the PC version of the game, according to the company's announcement of the ban.

"Unfortunately, Marvel Snap is temporarily unavailable in U.S. app stores and is unavailable to play in the U.S. In a surprise to Second Dinner and our publisher Nuverse, Marvel Snap was affected by the takedown of TikTok late on Saturday, January 18," Second Dinner said previously.

Second Dinner Chief Development Officer Ben Brode told followers on social media that no warning was given to the company or Nuverse that their app would be part of the ban.

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Why It's Important: The ban of ByteDance apps was a large talking point mainly around TikTok, but several other apps were hurt by the ruling and are now affected.

Along with Marvel Snap, here are some other apps that ByteDance owns or controls that faced a similar fate.

Lemon8: social media platform
CapCut: video editing software
Gauth: artificial intelligence homework aid
Hypic: photo editing software
Lark: enterprise collaboration platform

Based on the timing of the ban still pending, these apps and the Marvel game could continue to be disallowed in app stores and could go dark in the future.

Second Dinner is ready to ensure this doesn't happen again by making changes.

"Marvel Snap is back online in the U.S. But to make sure this NEVER happens again, we're working to bring more services in-house and partner with a new publisher. This is the start of a new era for Marvel Snap." the company shared on social media.

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