Niantic is laying off about 90 employees and canceling four projects

Pokémon Go developer is shedding eight % of its workforce, which is claimed to be round 85-90 jobs. The augmented actuality recreation firm has additionally canceled 4 tasks. CEO John Hanke reportedly wrote in an e-mail to staff that Niantic was “going through a time of financial turmoil” and needed to “additional streamline our operations with a purpose to finest place the corporate” to climate any future financial turmoil.
“We not too long ago determined to cease manufacturing on some tasks and cut back our workforce by about eight % to concentrate on our key priorities,” a Niantic spokesperson instructed , which first reported the information. “We’re grateful for the contributions of these leaving Niantic and we’re supporting them by way of this troublesome transition.”
One of many video games that has been shelved is Transformers: Heavy Steel. Niantic and Hasbro and had been testing it in some markets since final summer season. Niantic has additionally canned an immersive theater challenge known as Hamlet. It was engaged on that challenge with theater group Punchdrunk, which is behind an immersive manufacturing of Macbeth known as Sleep No Extra. The opposite two shelved tasks are known as Blue Sky and Snowball.
Niantic hasn’t but been capable of recapture the lightning-in-a-bottle success of 2016’s . The corporate an AR recreation primarily based on Harry Potter earlier this 12 months. Bloomberg notes that titles primarily based on Catan (which ) and have not been profitable both.
Information of the layoffs and challenge cancellations comes in the future after Niantic , a basketball recreation it is making in collaboration with the NBA and the league’s gamers’ affiliation. In the meantime, the corporate will quickly launch an app that can . It is also engaged on an unique recreation known as and collaborating with different firms .
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