entertainment / Tuesday, 26-Aug-2025

Niantic Spatial Lays Off Dozens Of Staff Weeks After Pokémon GO Sale

Niantic, the company that createdPokémon GO, announced that it will lay off some employees after completing the sale of its mobile games group. Earlier this month, Niantic stunned the mobile gaming world when it announced it would sell off Pokémon GO and its other games to Scopely for nearly $4 billion dollars. The company split itself into two entities as part of the sale, with a games division and a second company called Niantic Spatial focused on "geospatial AI." However, as a part of this move, dozens of employees will be out of jobs in the coming weeks, a report claims.

The company's CEO John Hanke wrote on the Niantic website this week that the split will cause the organization to "operate as a startup organization." Hanke added that Niantic "carefully evaluated the structure we believe is needed for the new company" and concluded that "it became clear that some roles would not be required given our new focus." According to SF Gate, 68 employees will be impacted by the layoffs.

What Niantic Will Be Doing After The Pokémon GO Sale

Niantic Will Focus On Geospatial AI And Developing Its Original Game Ingress Prime

Although most of Niantic's gaming business is heading over to Scopely, the company will continue to work on various augmented reality projects that make use of several decades' worth of geospatial tracking. Niantic Spatial is a 'geospatial AI company' that will continue to own and operate Ingress Prime, Niantic's original AR-style game, and the more recent Peridot. The company is also developing a world model driven by Large Language Models and other AI technology.

Related
Do you think Pokémon GO will change now that Scopely purchased Niantic?

The acquisition of Niantic by Scopely means that Pokémon GO is one of the mobile games that was purchased, which is leaving some players worried about what could happen. When a company acquires another, sometimes they make big changes, sometimes they make small changes, and sometimes they just leave things as is. Because of the massive success of Pokémon GO, I would be shocked if Scopely alters much of anything. Perhaps they will add a fee to certain things, but I honestly do not even see that happening. Whatever Pokémon GO is doing, they are doing it right, as it is one of the biggest mobile games and has kept players invested for years, which leads me to believe the new company will keep things very similar, if not exactly the same.

Notably, in addition to the $3.85 billion received by Niantic as part of the Scopely sale, Niantic Spatial is working with a sizable amount of business capital. Niantic Spatial launched with $250 million in capital, with $200 million coming from Niantic's original holdings and another $50 million coming from Scopely. All of Niantic's original investors, which include Nintendo and Google, will also continue to be part of the company. This is all to say that Niantic is positioning itself for the future with a lot of cash on hand to fund its future growth.

Our Take: Niantic's Shift Is Disappointing But Not Unexpected

Niantic's Layoffs Come Amid Growing Cuts In The Tech Field

Pokemon GO Blastoise looking back at possible danger.Niantic Games

Niantic has always been a tech-friendly company, so its shift toward AI technology isn't exactly surprising. While the company's current geospatial projects service hundreds of thousands of customers, it haven't found a practical use for the technology outside of making games like Pokémon GO. While Niantic may want to function like a start-up company, having so much money on its balance sheet means that they don't need to be nearly as lean as a typical start-up.

It doesn't appear that these layoffs will affect Pokémon GOor the workforce behind it in any way, and developers of the game are still promising that no negative changes will happen to it. Regardless, we're disappointed by the continued trends of layoffs within tech companies, and we fear that Niantic's prominence will fade as it shifts to AI.

Source: Niantic, SF Gate

UPDATE: 2025/03/26 14:21 EST BY CHRIS COMPENDIO

Niantic Spatial Lays Off Dozens Of Staff Weeks After Pokémon GO Sale

The headline and some excerpts of this article have been revised to further clarify the distinction between Niantic and Niantic Spatial.

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Your Rating

Pokémon GO
6.3/10
Released
July 6, 2016
ESRB
e
Developer(s)
Niantic, The Pokemon Company
Publisher(s)
Niantic
Engine
Unity
Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
Cross-Platform Play
ios, andriod
Cross Save
yes
Franchise
Pokemon

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