Around a year and a half since its initial release in October of 2022, Marvel Snap is still making waves as a standout gaming success story. With a constantly expanding roster and shifting meta, the title has broken the curse afflicting many new game releases, passing the test of time to remain popular.
This raises an important question that many developers will be asking – what exactly did Marvel Snap do that made it a hit?
The most underrated factor that helps Marvel Snap get a head start in the gaming arena is its broad level of easy access. This was a precedent that many new games follow, which is best illustrated not by video games, but by the online casino industry.
The best online casino sites as reviewed at CasinoAlpha have long traced a similar path. Here, websites like Madslots Casino and Jackie Jackpot have been designed for years to work just as well on desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. As a side effect of this wide targeted access, the casino and their games are also highly efficient, running well even on older and less powerful devices. These are all components that Marvel Snap mirrors, building on the established success of its predecessors.
Online card games aren’t new, and in many cases, they mirror the development of physical titles. Famous names like MTG and Yu-Gi-Oh are popular examples, having made hugely popular transitions into the digital world. They’re also titles that can take 20 minutes to play a game, filled as they are with complicated combinations and esoteric rules.
By comparison, a game of Marvel Snap online takes around three minutes from start to finish. Usually cut into six rounds, the gameplay of Marvel Snap is highly strategic and skill-based, but it also doesn’t require an encyclopedia’s worth of knowledge to learn. This gives it an extremely low barrier to entry, making it an experience that’s hard for beginners to become overwhelmed by.
The final major contributing factor to the success of Marvel Snap is the popularity of the included characters. Big thanks here have to go to the success of the MCU of course, but we also can’t forget the fame of the inspiring comic books and related media. The new movies might have brought these characters and series to the mainstream, but most of us have had favorite comic characters for years, and Snap capitalizes on this.
Marvel Snap is almost a case of media and franchise stars aligning. It's a perfect storm of properties, ideas, and execution, resulting in a release that's more than just the sum of its parts. It's also a case where the ongoing success of recent releases like Deadpool and Wolverine means the game will remain in the public eye. Each new big entry in the Marvel zeitgeist sees a resurgence of Snap activity, and there's no telling how far this legacy could go. This might not be much help for long-suffering DC gamers, but we're sure they'll get their time in the sun one day.