Second Dinner, the studio behind Marvel Snap, has confirmed layoffs in late April 2026 – and co-founder Ben Brode has moved quickly to frame them as a necessary cost-cutting measure rather than a sign the game is winding down. In a Discord post on May 1, Brode described the cuts as “painful to make” while insisting the March 2026 roadmap remains unchanged.
The layoffs came to light when community manager Griffin Bennett – a recognisable face in the Snap community who had previously worked on Destiny 2 and Overwatch – announced on X that he’d been let go. Second Dinner was founded by ex-Blizzard veterans including Brode, who previously served as director of Hearthstone, and launched Marvel Snap in October 2022. The game reached over 100 million downloads by mid-2024, though player counts have softened since – reportedly dropping from a peak of around 39 million monthly active users in late 2023 to approximately 29 million by early 2026.
Honestly, the optics here are rough, even if Brode’s statement is measured and clearly sincere. Real people losing their jobs is never just a line item on a cost sheet – Bennett spent years building genuine goodwill with the Snap community, and his own gracious response on X, “no hard feelings to my friends and colleagues at SD – their future is incredibly bright,” says a lot about the kind of culture Second Dinner has cultivated. But none of that changes what the layoffs signal about the studio’s financial position, particularly with revenue reportedly declining to $150 million in 2025 from $175 million the year before. It’s a pattern that’s become grimly familiar – studios that once looked untouchable finding themselves making hard choices as live service economics tighten around them.
Brode addressed concerned players directly, writing: “We’re still here, still building, still committed to this game and to you. This is us making hard decisions to make sure we can keep going, not a sign that we’re winding down.” It’s worth noting that Second Dinner has also had to navigate a rocky transition to full independence after Marvel Snap’s former parent ByteDance became entangled in the US TikTok ban – a period that clearly stretched the team thin across too many game modes, something the March roadmap directly acknowledged. Managing community trust during operational turbulence is something live service studios consistently underestimate, and Second Dinner is now learning that lesson in real time.
The community reaction on Reddit has been split – some players are cautiously optimistic that trimming costs could stabilise things long-term, while others worry that quality will slip and the game will drift toward chasing big spenders over its broader player base. With a developer livestream scheduled for May 8 and fresh Sensor Tower revenue data due mid-May, the next few weeks should tell us a lot about where Marvel Snap actually stands.
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