Pokémon Go under new ownership as Niantic embarks "on a bold new course"
Pokémon Gone.
Pokémon Go and its sister titles are set for a change in management with their recent purchase being announced.
In a press release, developer Niantic revealed that it had sold its collection of mobile games to Scopely for a whopping $3.5 billion.
Scopely, the company behind Monopoly Go, will take over as the new owners of Pokémon Go, Pikmin Bloom and Monster Hunter Now.
This deal also includes the development teams for these games, though it remains to be seen whether or not any jobs will be impacted by this takeover.
Niantic's games have notably made heavy use of geospatial technology, and the company is looking to focus on that technology more heavily in the future.
"We're spinning off our pioneering geospatial AI business into a new company, Niantic Spatial Inc," announced the company via its official social media channels.
Scopely is already a veritable giant in the mobile gaming landscape, owning the rights to Monopoly Go, Stumble Guys, Marvel Strike Force and Star Trek Fleet Command.
The company is itself a subsidiary of the Saudi-based Savvy Games Group, which owns various companies in the games industry as well as having significant shares in companies like Nintendo, EA, Capcom and Embracer Group.
In a press release, Scopely CFO Tim O'Brien said: "We are extremely inspired by what the team has built over the last decade, delivering innovative experiences that captivate a vast, enduring global audience and get people out in the real world.
"We look forward to a bright future ahead."
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While the view of the purchase from both Scopely and Niantic is positive, views among players and fans of these games are somewhat more mixed.
Many fans who had become disillusioned with Niantic's running of Pokémon Go in particular are optimistic that this will be good for the game's future.
Niantic itself has confirmed that the developers of each game have "exciting long-term roadmaps" that will ensure the takeover has little to no impact on the short-term future for each game.
Other responses were markedly more negative, with one tweet reading, "Are we gonna have to pay to catch Pokémon now?" – a perceived jab at Scopely's monetisation practices.
As one of the biggest mobile games in the world, bringing in around $1 billion in revenue in 2024, Pokémon Go trading hands is sure to shake things up in the market in both the short and long term.
Whether or not this will be a net positive for Pokémon Go and its sister games, only time will tell.
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