Marvel Snap publisher's parent company confirms restructuring, reportedly stepping away from video games
UPDATE: Marvel Snap team responds, says game will "continue to operate and flourish in the future".
UPDATE 28/11/21: Following Reuters' report, the Marvel Snap team has said "Snap will continue to operate and flourish in the future!"
In a post shared on X (formerly Twitter), the official Marvel Snap account acknowledged many of its players had "expressed their concerns regarding reported structural changes at Nuverse".
The team thanked its community for this concern, before stating: "We wish to... assure you that regardless of any changes at Nuverse, Snap will continue to operate and flourish in the future!"
The original story continues below.
ORIGINAL 27/11/23: Chinese internet technology firm ByteDance is restructuring the video games side of its business.
The company, the parent of Marvel Snap publisher Nuverse, called this a "difficult" decision to make.
"We regularly review our businesses and make adjustments to centre on long-term strategic growth areas," a spokesman for the ByteDance said in a statement shared with Reuters. "Following a recent review, we've made the difficult decision to restructure our gaming business."
While ByteDance did not go into further detail, sources told the publication the company is expected to tell employees to stop working on unreleased games by December. Meanwhile, it will reportedly look into ways to divest from titles already launched, with sources indicating ByteDance has no intention of returning to the video game market.
Reuters' sources, who chose to remain anononymous, said this decision by ByteDance is likely to impact "hundreds" of employees. However, casual Chinese gaming brand Ohayoo, as well as casual games that run on TikTok (of which ByteDance is also a parent of), will reportedly not be impacted by the proposed changes.
This news is just the latest in a year of restructuring and layoffs across the video game industry, with the likes of Epic among the many companies that have been affected.
More recently, Embracer co-founder and CEO Lars Wingefors confirmed 900 employees were laid off from the company's portfolio in the past financial quarter. This represented five percent of the workforce.