Niantic Lays Off 230 Employees, Shutting Down LA Studio

Pokémon GO developer Niantic has closed it’s LA Studio, resulting in 230 job losses. CEO John Hanke sent an email to his employees stating, “I have made the decision to narrow our focus for mobile game investments. Specifically, this means we will be closing our LA studio, reducing our game platform team, and making additional reductions across the company… This means we are laying off around 230 Niantics.”

In addition to this, NBA All-World will close, and production will cease for Marvel: World of Heroes as Niantic wants to continue to support Pokémon Go. “The top priority is to keep Pokémon GO healthy and growing as a forever game, while we made some adjustments to the Pokémon GO team, our investment in the product and team continues to grow.” said Hanke.

Pokémon GO has been widely successful since its 2016 launch, but it has has been involved with numerous community controversies, one of which involved reverting an expanded spawn radius that was favored by players. Other Niantic projects, from Harry Potter to Pikmin Bloom, have not reached a similar amount of popularity.

Aside from Pokémon GO, Niantic will continue to work on Pikmin Bloom, Peridot, and the upcoming Monster Hunter Now. It is also building towards developing mixed reality devices and AR glasses.

Source: GamesIndustry.biz