Pokemon Go maker Niantic closes studio, cancels games
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POKEMON Go maker Niantic is closing its Los Angeles game studio and cancelling NBA and Marvel titles in a restructuring aimed at stabilising the company’s finances.
Niantic will cut 230 jobs or about 25 per cent of its staff, a spokesperson said on Thursday (Jun 29).
“We have allowed our expenses to grow faster than revenue,” chief executive officer John Hanke wrote in an email to employees. “New projects in games and platform have not delivered revenues commensurate with those investments.”
The closely held San Francisco-based metaverse darling will halt work on the upcoming Marvel World of Heroes and shut down its NBA All-World game. Released in January, NBA All-World received just 354,000 downloads in its first week, according to data compiled by Data.ai. By comparison, Niantic’s Nintendo collaboration Pikmin Bloom and the latest game Peridot received about 1 million downloads in their first week.
The restructuring will bring expenses and revenue “back in line while preserving our core assets”, Hanke said.
The company remains committed to supporting Pokemon Go, Pikmin Bloom, Peridot, Ingress and the upcoming Monster Hunter Now game, the spokesperson said.
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Last year, Niantic cancelled four projects and cut 8 per cent of its staff. In May, Bloomberg reported that the company had been struggling to produce a hit amid metaverse scepticism. BLOOMBERG
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