Pokémon GO Developers Niantic is Reportedly in Talks to Sell its Video Game Business

Niantic Inc. is allegedly in talks with Saudi Arabia-controlled company Scopely Inc. in regards to the former selling their video game business to Scopely Inc. A sale of this sort would mean that Pokémon GO and Monster Hunter Now, among other games, will be handed over to Scopely Inc.

This report originates from Bloomberg, which states that Niantic is in discussions to sell its gaming business for approximately $3.5 billion. However, there is no guarantee that the deal will go through. If negotiations are successful, Bloomberg suggests an official announcement could be made in the coming weeks.

Niantic Inc. is a software company developing both augmented reality games and other software revolving around the same technology. Their biggest hit was Pokémon GO which reached more than 500 million downloads across the globe. This makes it the most popular augmented reality game in the world.

The game has also won various awards, namely the Best Mobile Game in the 13th British Academy Games Awards and Mobile game of the Year in the 20th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards. It was also nominated for Game of the Year at the latter award show.

However, Niantic Inc. was not able to replicate this kind of success which led to the company laying off more than 200 of its employees in 2023. The company also shut down its Los Angeles studio and sunset NBA All-World as well as cancelled the development of Marvel: World of Heroes.

In 2024, a blog post by Niantic revealed that they’re using player-contributed scans of public real-world locations to help build their Large Geospatial Model. This sparked data privacy concerns as Niantic’s privacy policy states that the company collects location data from players while they play their games.

Aside from the aforementioned games, Niantic is also behind Ingress, Pikmin Bloom, and Peridot. Monster Hunter now is their latest game which was released on September 14, 2023 and is based on the Monster Hunter franchise. The game is available on iOS and Android.