- Pokemon Go Content Creators Getting Backlash After Niantic Decided to Revert Wild Spawn Radius Increase Future Game Releases
- Pokémon Go Update That Was Too Good To Be True Is Getting Reversed [Update] Kotaku
- A Note to Our Readers – 0.275 “double spawn radius” update edition | Pokémon GO Hub Pokémon GO Hub
- Pokémon Go players are ‘getting sick’ of inconsistent bug fixes after spawn radius reversal Dot Esports
- Pokémon Go developer reverts improved spawn change, after reportedly assuring community leaders it would stay Eurogamer.net
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: Niantic
Pokémon GO Game Director Responds To ‘Hear Us Niantic’ Social Media Backlash – Nintendo Life
- Pokémon GO Game Director Responds To ‘Hear Us Niantic’ Social Media Backlash Nintendo Life
- Niantic breaks silence on HearUsNiantic movement and Pokémon Go’s Remote Raid controversy Dot Esports
- In response to Niantic breaking silence on HearUsNiantic movement and Remote Raid changes | Pokémon GO Hub Pokémon GO Hub
- Pokemon GO Not Budging on Remote Raids, Won’t Address HearUsNiantic Movement GameRant
- Pokémon Go players furious over Niantic’s response to HearUsNiantic movement Dot Esports
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Niantic Refutes Claims That Pokémon Go’s Revenue Has Slumped To Five Year Low – IGN
- Niantic Refutes Claims That Pokémon Go’s Revenue Has Slumped To Five Year Low IGN
- Pokémon Go developer dismisses “incorrect” report that claimed revenue down to lowest since 2018 Eurogamer.net
- Niantic Dismiss Claims of Low Monthly Revenue and Tease New Features | Pokémon GO Hub Pokémon GO Hub
- Niantic responds to “incorrect” Pokemon Go revenue report for April 2023 Dexerto
- Pokémon GO Developer Says Reports Of Monthly Earnings At Five-Year Low Are “Incorrect” Nintendo Life
- View Full Coverage on Google News
‘Hear Us Niantic’ Trends On Social Media In Response To Pokémon GO Remote Raids Update – Nintendo Life
- ‘Hear Us Niantic’ Trends On Social Media In Response To Pokémon GO Remote Raids Update Nintendo Life
- Pokemon Go Players Write Open Letter to Niantic Over Remote Raid Controversy ComicBook.com
- Leaks point to Niantic moving ahead with Pokémon Go’s controversial Remote Raid changes Dot Esports
- “#HearUsNiantic”: Pokemon GO community appeals against Niantic’s latest Remote Raid Pass nerfs Sportskeeda
- Pokémon Go ‘Save Remote Raiding’ Petition Amasses Over 50K Signatures in Four Days CBR – Comic Book Resources
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Pokémon Go maker Niantic cancels projects, lays off 8% of staff
Pokémon Go and Pikmin Bloom maker Niantic is cutting costs and canceling games. According to a new report from Bloomberg, the augmented reality technology and game maker is shedding 8% of its staff and scrapping four in-development projects. That includes two previously announced efforts, the AR game Transformers: Heavy Metal and a collaboration with theater company Punchdrunk, known for its immersive play Sleep No More.
Bloomberg reported Wednesday that Niantic CEO John Hanke told employees in an email that the company was “facing a time of economic turmoil” and was looking to rein in costs.
Niantic is best known for its hit mobile game Pokémon Go, a successor to its debut augmented reality title Ingress. Launched in 2016, Pokémon Go was and continues to be a hit for Niantic, and was the fifth-highest grossing mobile game in the U.S. in 2021, according research firm Sensor Tower.
Niantic has attempted to replicate Pokémon Go’s success with other popular properties. In summer 2019, the company launched Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, but it failed to catch on the way Pokémon Go did. Two years after the Wizard World game’s launch, Niantic announced it would be shut down. Niantic later teamed up with Nintendo for Pikmin Bloom, a mobile game that was a modest success and reportedly generated only $5 million in revenue — a far cry from Pokémon Go’s billions in earnings.
Based on Bloomberg’s reporting, it appears that Niantic will continue to move forward with the recently announced NBA All-World, a free-to-play game where players collect NBA stars, buff and customize them with items picked up from visits to real-world locations, and take on other players in one-on-one matches at their neighborhood courts and other locations. Niantic also has an original virtual pet game, Peridot, in development, which it has already soft-launched and plans to release more widely this year.
Pokémon Go Studio Lays Off Staff And Cancels Projects
The mobile game company behind Pokémon Go, Niantic, is struggling to find its next big hit. And now, a new report claims the studio canceled multiple projects and laid off staff members in an effort to “streamline” operations.
The San Francisco-based publisher cut 85 to 90 jobs and canceled four in-development games, including a Transformers spin-off announced last year called Heavy Metal, according to a Bloomberg report published today, Bloomberg further reported that an email was sent from CEO John Hanke to staff that said the company was “facing a time of economic turmoil” and that after previous efforts to cut costs, Niantic still needed to “further streamline our operations in order to best position the company to weather any economic storms that may lie ahead.”
Other reportedly canceled games include Hamlet, a planned collaboration between Niantic and theatre company Punchdrunk, and Blue Sky and Snowball, but it’s unclear if those were planned titles or internal codenames.
Niantic found big success with 2016’s AR-powered Pokémon Go, but it still hasn’t been able to replicate that success. In 2019, the studio released Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, but it never found a large audience and was eventually shut down earlier this year. Other games based on Pikmin and Catan have also failed to set the world on fire.
Read More: Niantic Mapped The World. Now They’re Mapping You
In a statement sent to Kotaku, a Niantic spokesperson confirmed the news of the layoffs and explained it planned to continue to support Pokémon Go and its other games and projects.
“We recently decided to stop production on some projects and reduce our workforce by about eight percent to focus on our key priorities,” said Niantic. “We are grateful for the contributions of those leaving Niantic, and we are supporting them through this difficult transition.
The company also told Kotaku that this move will allow the company to focus more on “new experiences” and that it will “continue investing in the future of AR.”
While it’s true Niantic will keep investing in new games—the company did just announce a new project with the NBA after all—it’s unlikely that those laid off will find comfort in that fact. I can’t imagine watching your company continue to make billions of dollars on a single game while laying off staff is a good way to boost morale.
Niantic Inc gets a $300 Million investment to build the Real-World Metaverse
Niantic has shared that the company received a $300 million investment from Coatue, a global investment manager focused on tech, media and telecommunications industries.
This investment brings Niantic’s total valuation at a whooping $9 billion. That’s a lot of PokéBalls.
Niantic will use the funds to invest in current games and new apps, expand the Lightship developer platform, and build out its vision for the Real-World Metaverse. You can learn more about Niantic’s Lightship Platform in the video below:
Words from Niantic and Coatue
Here’s what the big shots had to say about this investment:
John Hanke, Niantic’s Founder and CEO
“We’re building a future where the real world is overlaid with digital creations, entertainment and information, making it more magical, fun and informative,” said John Hanke, Niantic’s Founder and CEO. “This will take a significant investment of talent, technology and imagination, and we’re thrilled that Coatue is on this journey with us.”
Matt Mazzeo, a General Partner at Coatue
“Niantic is building a platform for AR based on a 3D map of the world that we believe will play a critical role in the next transition in computing,” said Matt Mazzeo, a General Partner at Coatue. “We are excited to partner with Niantic because we see this infrastructure supporting a metaverse for the real world and helping to power the next evolution of the internet.”
Niantic also shared an interesting promotional video titled “Meet You Out There”.
Niantic’s Pokémon GO-Style Harry Potter Mobile Game Is Being Shut Down
Niantic has banked an incredible amount of money with its mobile hit Pokémon GO, but it seems it’s been unable to recreate this same level of success with the Harry Potter title, Wizards Unite.
In an update on the game’s official website yesterday, Niantic announced it would officially shut down the game on 31st January next year. On 6th December 2021, it’ll be removing the game from the App Store, Google Play and Galaxy Store. In-game purchases will also end on 6th December.
Although Niantic is officially winding down its service for Wizards Unite, it’s just launched its new Nintendo-themed title, Pikmin Bloom. We said it was a glorious but glorified pedometer and gave it eight out of ten stars.
Niantic’s closure of its AR Harry Potter game follows on from the news about Nintendo’s shut down of its own mobile game, Dr. Mario World. Are you at all surprised to hear Niantic’s Pokémon GO-style Harry Potter game didn’t take off? How do you think its new Pikmin title will go? Leave a comment down below.
Pokémon Go developer Niantic releasing new Pikmin AR game, Pikmin Bloom
Pikmin Bloom, a new augmented reality app from Nintendo and Pokémon Go creator Niantic, is coming to mobile devices starting Tuesday. The new app will be released in Australia and Singapore first, and will roll out globally over the coming days on Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store, according to a news release. It will be available to download for free.
“For both me and everyone at Niantic, helping this app take shape has been a new experience and lots of fun,” Shigeru Miyamoto said in a new trailer for the game. “My hope is that everyone will be able to create lasting memories together with Pikmin.“
The app uses real-world augmented reality (AR) technology to bring the colorful insect-like mascots called Pikmin to your daily walk. By doing this, it aims to “spice up” banal commutes like going to the park or to the grocery store by allowing you to interact with your Pikmin.
The mainline Pikmin games for consoles are a series of strategy games where you grow and command groups of Pikmin as if they were an army. This app takes a more peaceful approach and doesn’t involve fighting other creatures. In Pikmin Bloom, you plant Pikmin, which grow automatically as you walk, then you pluck them. The more you walk, the more Pikmin friends you can make.
Image: Niantic/Nintendo
Walking with your Pikmin also leaves a trail of blooming flowers and gives your Pikmin the chance to collect items. There are no new Pikmin in this game, but they will collect outfits that they can wear. As they collect specific items like fruit, you can use it to feed your Pikmin. Feeding them will then cause flowers to bloom on their heads that you can use to plant even more flowers on your walk — allowing you and others to plant virtual gardens all throughout your city.
Even though you can team up with other trainers in Pokémon Go, that app is still a competitive game where you fight to take gyms for your team. Pikmin Blooms won’t have you picking any teams and aims to be more collaborative. Throughout the game, you plant gardens with others and take on challenges with players that will help you win rewards.
Image: Niantic/Nintendo
Pikmin Bloom is trying to be more about celebrating mundane memories. A key part of the game will be a journal that allows you to reflect on your day. So each day, the app will allow you to count your steps and will generate a journal entry that gives you the option to add photos and create a little entry.
Niantic pulls the plug on CATAN World Explorers
Niantic has decided to pull the plug on the development of CATAN World Explorers, a game based on the immensely popular board game CATAN. The company shared a statement on the CWE forums, informing players about the upcoming plan to sunset the game.
CATAN – World Explorers will sunset on November 18th, 2021, 7am UTC. Pokémon GO players who played CWE will be able to transfer their CWE currency into Pokémon GO, provided that they spend real money on the game.
So what happened? According to the official statement, the game drifted away from the original CATAN game, making it difficult to align the MMO nature of Niantic’s mobile games with the board game’s appeal.
The full statement is attached below and you can see the gameplay on this Youtube video.
CATAN – World Explorers is shutting down
Explorers,
After a year of exploring the world together, we are announcing today that CATAN – World Explorers will not be rolling out to more countries and instead we will be winding down the game over the coming months. The team thanks all of you, our dedicated players, for your feedback and your fun.
CATAN – World Explorers will sunset on November 18th, 2021, 7am UTC. This means that the game will not be available to play any more after this date and all development on it will be halted. Later today, we will be taking the game down from the App Store and removing real-money purchases from the Shop. We want to have some final fun in our last few seasons; we plan on increasing bonuses to make the most of the remaining weeks!
The team originally set out to build a game that turned the world into a CATAN gameboard. We had a vision for trading, harvesting, and building up the world in seasonal play and resetting the board each month, just like you do for each new game you play at home. But trying to adapt such a well-designed board game to a global, location-based Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game was a tough challenge. We’re so proud of the game we made, however we got a little too complicated and a little too far from the original CATAN game. The work and knowledge that we learned working on this game is not lost and we’re already working hard on more games for the future!
To everyone in the CATAN – World Explorers community that joined us for this adventure, we’re so thankful for your dedication, support, and detailed feedback! We hope to see you again soon.
The CATAN – World Explorers team has learned a lot since we kicked off our soft launch beta in early July 2020. A lot can be attributed to this community of dedicated beta players, who rigorously reported every bug, provided key feedback, and always reminded us why we made this game in the first place: for a community of dedicated fans. We want to thank everyone who supported this game!
Here you can find some GIFs and Stickers that we had planned to release for the launch of this game. They are also available on social media apps like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram – just type CatanWE in the search bar. We hope they will be something that you enjoy and share during the last two seasons. We are already thinking about how to spice up the final season for all of you.
Thank you for being the best community we could imagine!
Yours,
The CATAN – World Explorers Team
What happens to my in-app purchases?
You’ll still be able to spend your remaining Gold balance before the end of the game. We have some gameplay ideas that we are planning will make the next few months of gameplay really exciting! We’re also going to cut prices of items in the shop so that players have the full opportunity to enjoy your Gold balance in the next few months.
If you would like to use your currency in Pokémon GO, you can transfer your unused Gold balance to Pokémon GO. Please contact support before November 1st to request this balance transfer.