Photo: ANP
American gaming company Niantic, maker of the popular Pokémon Go game, says, among other things, a farewell to 8% of its employees. This equates to about 90 jobs. The developer has also halted four projects, according to an email he sent to Bloomberg News-owned employees.
According to CEO John Hanke, Niantic is committed to cutting costs. He also warned of possible economic difficulties that might affect the company.
The canceled projects include Heavy Metal, the Transformers game that Niantic announced last year. Project Hamlet has also been discontinued. This is a collaboration between Niantic and Punchdrunk, the theater company behind the popular interactive play Sleep No More. The other two projects were named Blue Sky and Snowball.
Founded in 2010, Niantic is best known for creating augmented reality-style games that blend digital interfaces with real images captured by players’ cameras. In 2016, the company released Pokémon Go, which became a phenomenon. Street hunting game for Pokemon characters has been downloaded over a billion times and is estimated to generate over $1 billion in annual sales.
The new success of Niantic was not imminent. Harry Potter: Wizards Unite was launched in 2019. Here too, success was not imminent and the game was discontinued this year. Games based on the board game Catan and Nintendo’s Pikmin series have also proven unsuccessful.
