Niantic has announced that it's sold off its gaming wing to the Saudi-funded mobile firm Scopely for the princely sum (no pun intended) of $3.5 billion.
The deal, which was rumored to be happening last month, was confirmed today in a news post entitled "Niantic's Next Chapter". Niantic says that Scopely will acquire its games, including Pokemon Go, Pikmin Bloom, and Monster Hunter Now, for the aforementioned sum "with an additional $350 million of cash from Niantic being distributed as part of the deal".
It sounds as though the development structure of Niantic's gaming teams won't be changing much; in its own news post, Scopely says "all members of the Niantic gamemaking team" will join Scopely's staff and "continue to develop and operate their beloved experiences".
Pokemon Go SVP Ed Wu says his team plans to use Scopely's "full commitment, experience, and resources" to make the game "the very best it can be".
For his part, Niantic head John Hanke says he's "confident" that Niantic games will remain a "bridge to connect people and inspire exploration" under Scopely, praising the new owners' "incredible live services" and "exceptional experience working with the world's biggest and most beloved intellectual properties".
In case you need a reminder, Scopely is the company responsible for mobile games like Star Trek Fleet Command, Yahtzee with Buddies, and Monopoly Go, which was the biggest mobile game launch of its year, raking in over $1 billion in 2023 alone.
The company is owned by the Savvy Gaming Group, a gaming investment company backed by the country's Public Investment Fund. Said fund also has shares in the likes of Nintendo, Embracer Group, and Capcom, among others.
As for Niantic's geospatial AI business, that will be spun off into its own entity, which Hanke will continue to lead. Appropriately, the new company will be called Niantic Spatial Inc., and its goal is "building spatial intelligence that helps people better understand, navigate, and engage with the physical world".
We'll have to wait and see what Scopely's impact on Niantic's gaming properties will be, but it sounds as though the two studios don't intend to change much in the short term. Stay tuned for more.
