Pokémon Go developer Niantic has reportedly cancelled four projects and laid off 8 per cent of its staff, which amounts to approximately 85 jobs.
Despite the incredible success of Pokémon Go, Niantic has struggled to recreate this success with its other titles. For example, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite was a Harry Potter take on the Pokemon Go formula. The player would travel to real-life locations to fight beasts from the Fantastic Beasts franchise and find items, visit inns, and so on. After only three years in operation, Wizards Unite was shut down earlier this year.
As per Bloomberg, Niantic CEO John Hanke sent a company-wide email saying the company was “facing a time of economic turmoil” and cost-cutting measures would have to be implemented.
Two of the four cancelled projects are the AR game Transformers: Heavy Metal and a planned collaboration with the immersive theatre company Punchdrunk. The other two projects were codenamed Blue Sky and Snowball and no further information is known about them, besides the fact they now won’t see the light of day.
As reported by Variety, a Niantic representative gave the following statement:
“We recently decided to stop production on some projects and reduce our workforce by about 8% to focus on our key priorities. We are grateful for the contributions of those leaving Niantic and we are supporting them through this difficult transition.”
The statement continued, “This means we can focus on our most important priorities, including ‘Pokémon Go’ and a select set of new experiences, as well as the Lightship platform [a toolset for building AR experiences]. This increased focus, as well our strong core business, puts us in a position to weather the broader economic uncertainty many companies are facing and continue investing in the future of AR.”
It would appear Niantic is planning on continuing with NBA All-World, a recently announced free-to-play NBA franchised game where the player collects NBA stars and upgrades them.