Pokemon Go Game Developer Niantic Lays Off 230 Workers, Cancels NBA, Marvel Games

San Francisco: Pokemon GO game developer Niantic has announced that it is laying off around 230 employees, sunsetting NBA All-World and stopping production on Marvel: World of Heroes.

Niantic CEO John Hanke shared an e-mail to employees on Thursday, the company said in a blogpost.

"I have some news to share with you about steps we're taking to set Niantic up for the future. They mean some difficult changes for our organisation, but I believe they are important if we are to weather the current challenges in the market and take advantage of the long term opportunity in front of us," Hanke said.

"I have made the decision to narrow our focus for mobile game investments, concentrating on first party games that most strongly embody our core values of location and local social communities."

Also, the company now wants to increase its focus on building for the emerging class of mixed reality (MR) devices and future augmented reality (AR) glasses. As a result, Niantic will be closing its Los Angeles studio, reducing the game platform team and making additional reductions across the company. Moreover, it will be sunsetting NBA All-World and stopping production on Marvel: World of Heroes.

"In the wake of the revenue surge we saw during Covid, we grew our headcount and related expenses in order to pursue growth more aggressively, expanding existing game teams, our AR platform work, new game projects and roles that support our products and our employees," Hanke explained.

However, post-Covid, the revenue returned to pre-Covid levels and new projects in games and platform have not delivered revenues commensurate with those investments, he added.

Hanke described the change as "painful" and said that this step "is in the interest of adjusting to new conditions and evolving the company so it can succeed."

In June last year, the Pokemon GO game developer had laid off eight per cent of its workforce, which was said to be around 85-90 jobs. During the layoff, the company had also cancelled four projects, including the 'Transformers: Heavy Metal' game.