Niantic, the maker of Pokémon Go and Pikmin Bloom, is cutting costs and canceling games. According to a new Bloomberg report, the augmented reality game and technology maker is setting aside 8% of its staff and ruling out four projects in development. This includes two previously announced efforts, the AR Transformers: Heavy Metal game and a collaboration with the Punchdrunk theater company, known for its immersive play Sleep No More.
Bloomberg reported Wednesday that Niantic CEO John Hanke told employees in an email that the company was “facing a time of economic crisis” and was looking to control costs.
Niantic is best known for its successful mobile game Pokémon Go, the successor to its debut augmented reality title Ingress. Launched in 2016, Pokémon Go was and continues to be a hit for Niantic, and was the fifth highest-grossing mobile game in the U.S. in 2021, according to research firm Sensor Tower.
Niantic has tried to replicate the success of Pokémon Go with other popular properties. In the summer of 2019, the company released Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, but failed to capture how Pokémon Go did it. Two years after the release of the game Wizard World, Niantic announced that it would close. Niantic later teamed up with Nintendo for Pikmin Bloom, a mobile game that was modestly successful and reportedly generated only $ 5 million in revenue, far from the billions in profits. of Pokémon Go.
According to Bloomberg reports, it looks like Niantic will continue to move forward with the recently announced NBA All-World, a free game where players collect, improve and personalize NBA stars with items collected from real-world visits. locations and face other players in one-on-one matches on your neighborhood courts and other locations. Niantic also has an original virtual pet game, Peridot, in development, which it has already released smoothly and plans to launch it more widely this year.