While the success of Pokemon GO is not to be proven, it seems that Niantic has to face some difficulties. According to journalist Jason Schreier at Bloomberg, the company has already canceled no less than four projects, and plans to cut between 85 and 90 positions among its employees. A number that corresponds to approximately 8% of the workforce.
In an email to staff that Bloomberg was able to review, Niantic CEO John Hanke writes that the company is “facing a period of economic turbulence” and has already “cut costs in various areas.” .
Among the canceled projects are Heavy Metala game transformers that Niantic announced last year and Hamlet, a collaboration with the theater company Punchdrunk. The other two projects concerned were called Snowball and Blue Sky.
Difficulties replicating the Pokémon GO achievement
A news that may surprise as we know the real phenomenon that Pokémon GO has been since 2016. With more than a billion downloads and annual revenues estimated at more than a billion dollars per year, Pokémon GO remains one of the most profitable mobile games in the world.
But now, since then, Niantic has struggled in its attempts to replicate this success. Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, launched in 2019, for example, never managed to find its audience, forcing the game to close its doors last January. Other board chess, board game based projects Catan or the Nintendo series pikmine.
“We recently decided to stop production on some projects and reduce our workforce by around 8% to focus on our main priorities”
Niantic Spokesperson
A series of setbacks that led the company to scale back and focus on a few key projects. So the game NBA All World announced a few days ago, where players will be able to compete against NBA players in their neighborhood, should be the focus of Niantic. Without forgetting Pokémon GO of course.