Scopely has announced they will be acquiring Niantic games business, including their development team, and games including Pokemon GO, Monster Hunter Now, Pikmin Bloom, and services like Campfire; The newly formed Niantic Spatial is set to retain original IPs such as Ingress.
“Scopely has always been focused on cultivating meaningful communities through a shared love of play, and the Niantic games organization is one of the best in the world at this endeavor. 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 further accelerating the team’s creativity through our partnership,” said Tim O’Brien, Chief Revenue Officer and Board Member of Scopely. “Few games in the world have delivered the scale and longevity of ‘Pokémon GO’, which reached over 100 million players just last year. The experience also stands apart for its unique ability to foster in-person connections, with Pokémon GO live events attracting millions of attendees. After spending time with the Niantic team, it quickly became clear that this organization shares our inclination to create industry-leading outcomes and exceptional player experiences. We look forward to a bright future ahead.”
The apps joining Scopely include:
“Pokémon GO” - One of the most successful mobile games of all time, “Pokémon GO” – based on the globally popular Pokémon entertainment franchise – is a category-leading, evergreen game that continues to endure today.
- With over 20M weekly active players, the game has remained a top 10 mobile title every year since its launch in 2016. “Pokémon GO” players, also known as Trainers, have explored more than 30 billion miles together.
- The beloved experience reaches players in over 190 countries and regions, uniting a massive, deeply engaged fan community that averages 40 minutes in daily playtime. Approximately half of all players return to the game seven days a week.
- Unique in-real-life (IRL) events further propel the title, with Pokémon GO live events bringing millions of people together across multiple continents; two million tickets were sold for ‘Pokémon GO Fest’ alone in 2024. Attendees have caught 150 million+ Pokémon since the gatherings debuted.
“Pikmin Bloom” - In collaboration with Nintendo, Niantic unveiled “Pikmin Bloom” in 2021 to help players cover the world in flowers.
- Like the blooms planted by its players, the title continues to blossom, closing out 2024 with a record-breaking year. The game hit its highest active player count more than three years after launch.
- Players took 3.94 trillion steps in 2024 and gathered at in-person community events in Japan, the U.S., Germany, and Taiwan. Pikmin Bloom Journey brought together 10,000+ participants alone in Tokyo last year.
“Monster Hunter Now” - Niantic’s most recent game “Monster Hunter Now” has taken players by storm, particularly in Japan.
- After launching in September 2023, the game reached 15 million+ downloads in just seven months. Its growing playerbase also quickly embraced IRL events, with more than 20,000 people attending the first Monster Hunter Now Carnival event in Shibuya, Japan last October.
- Over 50% of its audience plays every day of the week, representing a deeply engaged player community that mirrors those of Scopely’s existing portfolio.
“Campfire” and “Wayfarer” - These social companion apps and services drive deep engagement across Niantic games. “Campfire” connects local player communities for real-world gameplay, fostering IRL friendships. “Wayfarer” enables players to map new locations for their favorite Niantic games, directly shaping their adventures in the games they love.
- These apps represent Niantic’s innovative approach to location-based games and highlight the team’s drive to continue elevating the player experience.
- In 2024 alone, 6 million+ people checked-in to in-person meet-ups via “Campfire.”
- The “Wayfarer” community has added more than 11.5 million new Wayspot locations to Niantic games since its 2019 launch.
All of this, and more, can be read about via the official blog post provided by Scopely.
As for Niantic, they detailed their own plans via a blog post as well.
In this article, the company announced the formation of Niantic Spatial Inc., which will be lead by John Hanke, and continue focusing on original projects such as Ingress Prime.
Here is a direct quote from the announcement.
Niantic Spatial Announcement:
Niantic Spatial’s goal is to lead the future of geospatial AI by building spatial intelligence that helps people better understand, navigate, and engage with the physical world.
Niantic Spatial is powered by a third-generation digital map that captures the content of the world at a level of fidelity never before achieved and enables both humans and machines to understand it in ways never before possible. This is part of the connective tissue that will enable AI to meaningfully understand and interact with the physical world.
Niantic Spatial Platform
Last year, we introduced the Niantic Spatial Platform – a milestone in our geospatial AI efforts. This comprehensive suite integrates spatial computing, Extended Reality, Geographic Information Systems, and Artificial Intelligence to create immersive experiences that seamlessly blend the digital and physical worlds with centimeter-level precision. Designed for diverse industry applications, it enhances manufacturing, warehousing, logistics, construction, tourism, entertainment, and education by enabling precise tracking, AR-guided navigation, and real-time 3D spatial visualization.
Our Visual Positioning System (VPS) and computer vision stack already power gaming experiences for millions in Pokémon GO, Ingress, and Peridot. Scaniverse, which uses breakthrough Gaussian splatting technology for more vibrant, accurate, and faster-rendering 3D models, serves hundreds of thousands of users monthly. Through real-world deployment, Niantic Spatial Platform has evolved from a consumer technology into an enterprise-grade solution, delivering high-fidelity scans, precise positioning, and AR visualizations with centimeter-level accuracy. To learn more, contact a Niantic Spatial Platform expert.
Niantic Spatial is developing a Large Geospatial Model – a world model powered by large-scale machine learning that enables people and machines to understand and navigate the physical world. This model enhances spatial reasoning in Large Language Models (LLMs) by providing a spatially grounded and semantically rich understanding of real-world locations. Built on a proprietary database of over 30 billion posed images, it delivers an unparalleled foundation for geospatial AI, enabling a deeper contextual understanding of the real world.
Niantic Spatial will continue to own and operate our other real-world AR games, Ingress Prime and Peridot, as best-in-class applications of the geospatial platform.
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