If you haven’t been following Niantic closely for the last few years, this story will probably come as a big surprise to you: Niantic is apparently considering selling off its games division, which most notably right now includes Pokemon Go.
The news comes via reporting Bloomberg, which claims Niantic is currently in talks with Scopely, a US-based studio that is part of Saudi Arabia’s Savvy Games Group. Unnamed sources suggest the purchase price could be as high as $3.5B US. “Any agreement would involve the Pokémon title as well as other mobile games,” the sources said. No agreement has been guaranteed or finalized, and of course, Niantic isn’t commenting either.
Longtime MOP readers will know that MOP’s Andrew has covered Pokemon Go and Niantic in exhaustive detail since POGO’s launch in 2016. While POGO was initially a global phenomenon and continues to rake in cash, it has visibly struggled in recent years with buggy content, mismanaged events, security lapses, and baffling comms, leading us to suspect POGO is merely the fun and pretty face on Niantic’s data-harvesting and AI aspirations. In other words, the sale isn’t as out of the blue as it sounds.
