Pokémon Go developer Niantic has introduced a large restructuring, the place will probably be closing its Los Angeles workplace, terminating over 200 staff, and scaling again improvement on a couple of titles because it narrows its focus in direction of supporting present titles whereas growing its dedication to combined and augmented actuality improvement.
In an electronic mail despatched to workers by CEO John Hanke (which you’ll learn right here), he explains that the pandemic-era surge of recruitment and increasing pipeline of tasks ballooned to the purpose that, as soon as the pandemic ended, the ensuing bills outpaced its income.
“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, expanding existing game teams, our AR platform work, new game projects and roles that support our products and our employees,” Hanke writes. “Post Covid, our revenue returned to pre-Covid levels and new projects in games and platform have not delivered revenues commensurate with those investments. This change will bring expenses and revenue back into line while preserving our core assets and long term upside.”
Hanke additionally cites an more and more crowded cell market and modifications to cell promoting making it troublesome to launch new titles at scale. He additionally factors to expertise challenges creating an AR market that has developed slower than anticipated attributable to an total lack of funding attributable to what he describes as a “global macroeconomic slowdown.”
As a outcome, Niantic is scaling again. The greatest lower is that it’s shutting down its LA workplace, which is able to lead to 230 staff dropping their jobs. It’s additionally ending help for NBA All-World, its cell AR NBA recreation that launched in January. Marvel: World of Heroes, an upcoming cell AR recreation based mostly on the favored comedian universe, has additionally been canceled.
“We also bear responsibility for our own performance,” Hanke writes within the electronic mail. “Today’s highly competitive mobile gaming market requires dazzling quality and innovation. It also requires strong monetization 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.”
Niantic will proceed supporting Pokémon Go (singled out as a “top priority”), Pikmin Bloom, Peridot, Ingress, and the not too long ago introduced Monster Hunter Now. The firm additionally plans to extend the event of instruments and experiences for rising MR units (such because the Meta Quest Pro and Apple Vision Pro) and AR platforms. As an entire, Niantic needs to streamline its workflow to scale back management redundancies and unclear decision-making.
“While you will see changes in the culture as we evolve into our newest form, our mission remains unchanged,” Hanke writes. “We remain committed to building products and technology with a purpose, that leave the world better off than it was before, that serve both our needs as a company and the needs of our community of developers and Niantic Explorers in a way that is healthy and positive.”
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