Niantic, the company behind popular mobile titles such as Pokémon Go and Monster Hunter Now, alongside several other games, will be selling off most of its gaming division for $3.5 billion. However, the company is opting to hold onto AR experiences Peridot and Ingress, which will be part of its new mission going forward. The company will now take on a “bold new course,” by focusing its efforts on the geospatial business it’s spinning out into Niantic Spatial Inc.
These gaming units have been purchased by Scopely, a company owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. As part of the acquisition, the development teams responsible for creating and maintaining these games will move along with the IPs. So fans of these titles shouldn’t worry about any drastic changes anytime soon. Ed Wu, SVP of Pokémon Go, says that the team is committed to “remain[ing] focused on the excitement and experience of discovering Pokémon in the real world.”
However, many players are feeling uneasy by seeing some of their favorite games being purchased by Scopely. First, the involvement of the Saudi government isn’t sitting well with many for a variety of reasons. Moreover, Scopely itself doesn’t have a sterling reputation for how it handles games in its portfolio. With one user on the Pokémon Go subreddit saying that “their reputation is to take games and extract as much money as possible with endless micro transactions or features that were free costing money.”
Time will tell how this acquisition ends up impacting the games that are now part of Scopely. Hopefully, the development teams aren’t cut down as can tend to happen after a purchase such as this one, and that players aren’t negatively impacted by the path Scopely decides to take with these established titles.