Pokemon Go studio Niantic is reportedly laying off 230 staff and cancelling its Marvel game
NBA All-World will also reportedly be shutting down
Pokémon Go developer Niantic is closing its Los Angeles studio and laying off 230 employees, it’s been reported.
Kotaku has reportedly acquired an internal email sent to employees by Niantic founder John Hanke, in which he says the studio’s “expenses [grew] faster than revenue”.
According to the report, Hanke’s email says that revenue increased drastically during the Covid-19 pandemic, but has since started to decline.
Citing a more crowded AR game market and a lack of long-term engagement for its other projects, Hanke claims Niantic isn’t meeting its internal goals, and that as such it will be laying off 230 staff, closing down its NBA All-World game and cancelling its upcoming Marvel: World of Heroes title.
Saying that the studio must “bear responsibility for our own performance”, Hanke’s email reportedly read: “Today’s highly competitive mobile gaming market requires dazzling quality and innovation. It also requires strong monetisation and a social core which can drive viral growth and long term engagement.
“Teams need platform tools that are force multipliers, enabling them to build at the highest quality with powerful engagement features quickly and efficiently.
“Our AR map and platform must deliver the features that developers want in a robust and reliable way. We have not met our goals in all of these areas.”
Hanke also stressed that Pokémon Go will remain a priority for Niantic, with plans to keep it going as “a forever game”.
Further reading
Pokemon Go studio Niantic is making a mobile Monster Hunter game
It will also continue to work on existing titles like Pikmin Bloom, Monster Hunter Now and Peridot, but Hanke warns that the studio has “a lot of work to do” to keep player retention, revenue and profitability on these games.
Niantic has struggled to make lightning strike twice following the success of Pokémon Go, which had been downloaded over a billion times by 2019 and continues to turn a healthy profit seven years after launch.
The studio has previously closed down Harry Potter: Wizards Unite and Catan: World Explorers – two attempts to replicate the same formula – and cancelled its planned Transformers game Heavy Metal.
