Just a month ago, we learned that Niantic had secured a deal to sell its games division to Scopely, a US-based studio that is part of Saudi Arabia’s Savvy Games Group. That deal included Pokemon Go, Pikmin Bloom, and Monster Hunter Now, and all the of their teams, for a whopping $3.85B US. At the time, Pokemon Go boss Ed Wu told fans that Scopely had picked up the entire POGO team, which led even our extremely skeptical Massively on the Go columnist Andrew to have some hope for the game’s future.
Well, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s starting to look like the game devs who moved from Niantic to Scopely actually got the better end of the deal by kind of a lot. That’s because Niantic has just laid off another 68 staffers who apparently didn’t get to make that move and have now been deemed unnecessary detritus. The news became public thanks to a layoff notice published by Niantic as mandated by the California WARN Act.
Last month, Niantic’s John Hanke followed up the sale announcement by declaring that Niantic would be charting a “bold new course” with a focus on augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and geospatial technology. As we noted at the time, we have long suspected that POGO was merely the socially acceptable front for Niantic’s actual data-harvesting and AI business, and that move only added to the evidence.
This latest round of layoffs will, according to Hanke, allow the company to run as a “startup” where “some roles would not be required giving [Niantic’s] new focus.” You know, a startup that just sold its entire games division for almost $4B.
