Niantic, the company that created the video game Pokemon Go, has said that it is laying off a quarter of its staff since demand for video games has slowed after the Covid-19 pandemic's spike in downloads. In addition, the company will also cancel two game titles and shut down its Los Angeles studio, as per a report in BBC.
Niantic's Chief Executive John Hanke said in a statement, "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."
He added that the company has decided to cut 230 jobs. "Specifically, this means we will be closing our LA studio, reducing our game platform team and making additional reductions across the company. As a result, we will be sunsetting NBA All-World and stopping production on Marvel: World of Heroes. This means we are laying off around 230 Niantics."
The company will also retire the Marvel World of Heroes game along with its newly-released NBA All-World game.
Niantic said that the company "allowed our expenses to grow faster than revenue." They added, "Post Covid, our revenue returned to pre-Covid levels and new projects in games and platform have not delivered revenues commensurate with those investments." With the layoffs, the company believes that the expenses and revenue will fall back into line while "preserving our core assets and long term upside".
It is to be noted that when Pokemon Go was introduced in 2016, it quickly became a worldwide craze with thousands of downloads. Many people and gamers would scour public areas to find the virtual characters , including Pikachu and Snorlax. However, there were multiple reports of users who disregarded safety instructions and caused car accidents, robberies, injuries and death. The augmented reality game reportedly smashed Apple's record for the most downloads in a single week at the time, according to the tech giant.
Niantic had announced in June 2022 that it will terminate four projects and lay off about eight per cent of its staff.
