Summary
Niantic Spatialis laying off employees shortly after its highly publicized sale to Scopely. ThePokemon GOpublisher announced that it would be selling its video game business to the Saudi Arabia-owned Scopely for about $3.5 billion in March, with the deal itself being part of Saudi Arabia’s growing interest in the gaming industry. This buyout would affect the development teams of otherNianticgames, butPokemon GOwas the one fans were most focused on due to its overall popularity.
The exact number ofNiantic employees being let gohas now been revealed in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification that was published in California (viaGame Developer). According to this report, Niantic Spatial will be laying off at least 68 workers effective May 20. These cuts were announced on March 20 in an internal email from Niantic CEO John Hanke, not too long after the sale to Scopely was first made public.
Niantic Spatial To Lay Off 68 Employees In May
During the earlier announcement of these layoffs, Hanke stated that these cuts would make thenewly-formed Niantic Spatial Inc. more focused by effectively operating as a “startup organization,” and that a lot of consideration was put into which roles to let go. He also said that these decisions were not made lightly and do not reflect the quality of work from the soon-to-be laid-off Niantic employees. Niantic has confirmed that Hanke’s notes are connected to the new WARN report, but it has no further comment at this time.
This isn’t the first time that acompany behindPokemon GOhas been hit with layoffs, as the Seattle-basedPokemon GOsupport studio Very Very Spaceship cut numerous employees last May. This included producers, recruiters and HR staff, and artists for in-game model assets, some of whom were a part of the company for about three to five years before the layoff announcement. According to a statement from Scopely,Pokemon GOwill not be impacted by Niantic Spatial’s layoffs.
