It is reported that the developer of the game Pokémon Go Niantic closes its studio in Los Angeles and dismisses 230 employees.
It was reported that Kotaku had the internal letter of Niantic founder John Hanke, sent to employees in which he says that "expenses of the studio [grew] faster than income".
According to the report, the Khanke letter says that the income increased sharply during the pandemic Covid-19, but then began to decline.
Referring to a more crowded AR IGR market and the lack of long-term participation in other projects, Hank claims that Niantic does not achieve its internal goals, and that in this connection it will fire 230 employees, close the NBA All-World game and cancel the upcoming Marvel game: World of Heroes.
The Khanke letter says that the studio should "be responsible for our own results": "Today’s highly competitive market for mobile games requires dazzling quality and innovation. It also requires strong monetization and social core, which can stimulate viral growth and long -term involvement.
"Teams need platform tools that are force multipliers, allowing them to quickly and effectively create games of the highest quality with powerful functions of involvement".
"Our AR card and the platform should provide the functions that developers need, a reliable and strong way. We have not achieved our goals in all these areas".
Hanke also emphasized that Pokémon Go will remain a priority for Niantic, with plans to save it as "Eternal game".
It will also continue to work on existing games, such as Pikmin Bloom, Monster Hunter Now and Peridot, but Hank warns that the studios are ahead "a lot of work", To maintain the retention of players, income and profitability of these games.
Niantic is struggling to make the lightning hit twice after the success of the Pokémon Go game, which was downloaded by 2019 more than a billion times and which continues to bring healthy profits seven years after launch.
Earlier, the studio closed the Harry Potter Games: Wizards Unite and Catan: World Explorers – two attempts to repeat the same formula – and canceled the planned game about Heavy Metal transformers.