Pokémon GO developer Niantic purchased by Scopeley in $3.5 billion acquisition

Niantic, developer of the famously popular Pokémon-branded AR spin-off for mobile devices, Pokémon GO, is being sold. Scopely, a mobile game developer and publisher owned by the Saudi royal investment fund-backed Savvy Games Group, has acquired the games business of Niantic, including Pokémon GO, Pikmin Bloom, and Monster Hunter Now for $3.5 billion, as originally reported by Bloomberg.

According to Ed Wu, lead of the Pokémon GO team at Niantic, “the entire Pokémon GO team is staying together through this partnership” and support for the game will continue. Wu writes that Scopely “fully believes in our mission and ongoing goal to create the best Pokémon GO experience possible” and will provide “experience and resources” to make the game “the very best it can be“.

“Players can expect that these games, apps, and events will stay true to the experiences they know and love and remain driven by the same dedicated development teams behind these beloved products,” writes Scopely co-CEOs Javier Ferreira and Walter Driver in a blog post. “Scopely’s role post-closing will be to empower the Niantic game team to pursue their ambitious roadmap by providing resources and support, all in service of giving players more of what they want from their favorite games“.

An acquisition of Niantic is perhaps not unexpected. Pokémon GO was indeed absurdly popular and profitable back in its 2016 heydey. However, the game’s popularity waned following its explosive debut. The pandemic years also posed an unavoidable speedbump in the game’s momentum. The game’s mechanics had to be substantially overhauled to function while complying with government quarantine restrictions. Niantic has also failed to recapture that lightning in a bottle, producing similar AR mobile spin-offs of popular franchises such as Harry Potter, Pikmin and Monster Hunter to modest success at best.

The Saudi government-owned Savvy Games Group, which via Scopely has acquired Niantic, has made a diverse range of investments across the video game industry. Notably, it has a 7.5% ownership stake in Nintendo, 9% ownership stake in Electronic Arts and 8.3% stake in whatever is left of Embracer Group nowadays. This acquisition of Niantic is subject to regulatory approval, of course, and it will remain to be seen if this merger will result in any major changes to Pokémon GO or any of Niantic’s other projects going forward.