Niantic: Pokémon Go studio lays off 80+ employees, projects on hold
While Pokémon Go continues to be a huge success for Niantic, other projects just don’t want to succeed: The studio has now laid off more than 80 employees, and several planned games have been canceled while they are still in development.
When you think of Pokémon Go, you automatically see a huge mobile hit that must have taken all the worries away from the studio responsible. But despite the success of Pokémon Go, Niantic is not doing so well at the moment. Another cracker like Pokémon Go just doesn’t seem to want to succeed, which has now ended in the worst-case scenario for some employees: Niantic fired 85 to 90 people (eight percent of the entire workforce), and four games were also being developed at the same time set. One of them is the Transformers game Heavy Metal, which was only revealed in 2021. This information comes from a report by Bloomberg. The layoffs and discontinued projects were also confirmed to Kotaku.
Niantic stuck in “economic turmoil”
The Bloomberg report also mentions an email from Niantic CEO John Hanke emphasizing that the company is heading into a “period of economic turbulence”. This message is also about the fact that previous measures to reduce costs have not been sufficient. “We must continue to streamline our operations to best position the company to weather any economic storms that may yet come.”
Nothing will come of the Transformers game Heavy Metal: It has now been discontinued by Niantic while still in development.
Source: Niantic
Niantic still announces NBA game
This information is also surprising since Niantic has just announced a new game: NBA All-World is being created in collaboration with the National Basketball Association. You should once again explore your neighborhood with your mobile phone and compete in 1v1 matches with other players in the world. Instead of Pokémon, you will then collect equipment and special sneakers. You can find out more about this on the game’s official website.
Which games have been scrapped by Niantic?
Games that have been canceled – alongside Transformers: Heavy Metal – are said to include Hamlet (a collaboration with a theater company), Blue Sky and Snowball. However, it is not clear whether these are game titles or code names. By the way, as recently as July 2021, it was said that Pokémon Go had recorded revenues of five billion dollars in five years (via sensor tower).
Reference-www.buffed.de