Pokémon Go developer Niantic is laying off around 230 employees and closes its LA studio, citing ācurrent challenges in the marketā.
In a major company shake-up, Pokémon Go developer Niantic is to lay off āaround 230ā employees, close its LA studio, and cancel development on two games.
Niantic boss John Hanke announced the news in an email to employees ā cosily dubbed āNianticsā ā in which he cited ācurrent challenges in the marketā as the reasoning behind the drastic measures.
āWhy are we making this change?ā Hanke asked himself in the email, published on the firmās website. āWe have allowed our expenses to grow faster than our revenue. In the wake of the revenue surge we saw during Covid, we grew our headcount and related expenses in order to pursue growth more aggressively.ā
Pokémon Go is still Nianticās major source of revenue, and Hanke writes that Nianticās ātop priority is to keep Pokémon Go healthy and growing as a forever game.ā
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Hanke also pledges ongoing support for other games in its portfolio, including Pikmin Bloom, Peridot and Monster Hunter Now.
A couple of the developerās other titles, meanwhile, are less lucky: basketball-themed mobile game NBA All-World is to be shut down, and production is to cease on Marvel World of Heroes.
That latter announcement is particularly surprising, given that work on Marvel World of Heroes appeared to be almost complete; at the time of writing, its website still says that it will āsoon be entering soft launchā and that āyour super hero journey begins in 2023.ā
Increased competition in the augmented reality space ā not to mention what looks increasingly like a recession in the tech sector ā are also listed as reasons for Nianticās restructure. āWe are operating in a tough market environment due to the overall global macroeconomic slowdown,ā Hanke writes, āas well as unique challenges in the mobile gaming and AR markets. In the years since Pokémon Go’s launch, the mobile market has become crowded and changes to the app store and the mobile advertising landscape have made it increasingly hard to launch new mobile games at scale.ā
Hereās hoping the affected former āNianticsā find new employment soon.