Despite Pokémon GO Success, Niantic Forced to Make Drastic Changes In Order to Save Itself

No matter how successful a company is, it must take challenging steps during difficult times. The developers who created Pokemon GO, Niantic, had to take tough steps like canceling four projects and firing 8% of the staff members.

The San Francisco-based video game development company Niantic was established in 2010. However, the company came to the spotlight in 2016 after releasing Pokemon GO. Soon after its release, it became a colossal hit, with over 1 billion downloads since the game’s release.

This game uses AR technology, which helped boost the game’s sales. The Pokemon fans were excited to spot Pokemon in the real world. Niantic bagged around $1 billion per year from the game. After six years, Pokemon GO is still among fan-favorite mobile games.

Why are Pokemon GO developers taking tough steps?

Niantic saw a lot of success with Pokemon GO. However, they failed to replicate that success after the Pocket Monster game. In 2019, Niantic came up with Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, but it could not impress the audience, so the developers had to stop the game earlier in 2022.

The failure to replicate has led the company to losses. So, the San Francisco-based video game company had to cancel four of its future projects and fire 8%, that is 85-90 people from the company.

A Niantic spokesperson reported, “We recently decided to stop production on some projects and reduce our workforce by about 8% to focus on our key priorities. We are grateful for the contributions of those leaving Niantic, and we are supporting them through this difficult transition.”

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Last year, Niantic announced a Transformers game, Heavy Metal, was one of the canceled projects. The other canceled projects include titles like Snowball and Blu Sky. The last project in the store was a collaboration with Punchdrunk, a theatrical company that came up with the play Sleep No More to develop a game called Hamlet.

Moreover, the Pokemon GO developers would continue upgrading the Pocket Monster games. Meanwhile, they still have a project on hand to work on. Niantic recently announced joining hands with National Basketball Association. The upcoming game would be called NBA All-World. It might be multiplayer, where players can play against other players in the neighborhood.

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What are your thoughts about the challenging steps that Niantic had to take? Do you play Pokemon GO?