Latest news with #Scopely
Forbes
22-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Pokemon Go Made Niantic Billions. Now It's Ditching Gaming For AI.
Walking through Niantic's headquarters in San Francisco's historic Ferry Building, visitors are greeted by a scrum of giant Pokemon stuffed animals: On amphitheatre-style steps, an enormous Snorlax naps in the corner while a bulbasour sits ready to pounce. Elsewhere, a stunned Psyduck stares vacantly toward the distance, and perhaps the company's unexpected future. In March, Niantic made a bombshell announcement: the developer of Pokemon Go — once the biggest mobile game ever in the U.S. — is abandoning games to go all-in on AI. It has sold off its game development business to Saudi-owned game maker Scopely in a $3.5 billion deal and rebranded itself as Niantic Spatial. Instead of building augmented reality games for mobile phones, it will develop artificial intelligence models that analyze the real world for enterprise clients. 'It's kind of unusual for a successful company to do this cellular division — form two companies,' cofounder and CEO John Hanke told Forbes. 'It became clear to us that the way to maximize the opportunity for both was to let each of them go and pursue its future.' Now, Niantic is doubling down on its nascent Spatial platform, announced in November, which provides AI mapping tools that companies can use to chart out routes for robots or power augmented reality glasses. Just as large language models allow AI to generate text, Niantic's Large Geospatial Models (LGMs) help AI understand, navigate and interact with physical spaces as a human would. The models are able to recreate 3D, real-world places thanks to Niantic's massive set of location data, drawn from the 30 billion miles people have collectively walked playing its games like Pokemon Go and Ingress. And when the models don't have precise data on all the dimensions, topography or physical structures in a place, they use generative AI to fill in those blanks, estimating different angles of a statue or missing corners of rooms. 'I don't think maximizing the value for Pokemon Go for the next 10 years is necessarily where [Hanke's] heart is at.' Niantic's pivot underscores the seismic effect that the generative AI frenzy has had on Silicon Valley since ChatGPT rocked the industry nearly two-and-a-half years ago — radically transforming even a firmly established decade-old company like Niantic. According to Gartner, the market for spatial computing is expected to hit $1.7 trillion by 2033, up from $110 billion in 2023, with growth driven by location-based services from the likes of mapping giant TomTom and traditional big tech like Google. 'The opportunity is enormous,' said Tuong Nguyen, director analyst for Garner's emerging technology team. So is the competition. In spatial AI, Niantic faces some formidable rivals. Since 2021, Nvidia, the $3 trillion chipmaker, has offered Omniverse, an enterprise platform that creates 3D 'digital twins' for performing simulations in factories and other industrial settings. And last year, computer vision pioneer Fei-Fei Li, known as the Godmother of AI, founded World Labs, a startup building AI that generates 3D fantasy worlds, which could be helpful for video game development or astronaut simulations. The company is already valued at $1 billion — without even launching a product. To fund its new company, Niantic went to its well of existing investors, including Coatue, Battery Ventures and CRV, for a $250 million investment. As part of the deal, which was in the works for a year and is expected to close by the end of the month, about 400 gaming employees will join Scopely, maker of the popular Monopoly Go mobile game, and about 200 will remain with Niantic. The company laid off more than 65 people during the restructuring; Niantic isn't expecting any more 'significant' layoffs, though one or two people could hypothetically depart in the final phases of the deal, Hanke told Forbes. From the start, Pokemon Go was a runaway hit, generating around $8 billion in revenue since its debut in 2016, analysts estimate. Almost a decade later, the game, which tasks players to catch virtual Pokemon by trekking to real-world locations, racked up 100 million players in 2024, Niantic said. The company brought in $1 billion in revenue last year, with 30 million monthly players across its catalog, which also includes Pikmin Bloom, a step-counter game developed with Nintendo, and Monster Hunter Now, developed with Capcom. Niantic doesn't break out revenue for individual games, but the vast majority came from Pokemon Go, according to research firm Aldora Intelligence. It was responsible for $770 million of Niantic's billion-dollar haul in 2024, the firm estimated. Pokemon Go was a global phenomenon, attracting meetups around the world. The game was lightning in a bottle, but Niantic has had trouble replicating its success. Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, the company's first big bet after Pokemon Go became a global phenomenon, was released in 2019 and scrapped in 2022. That same year, the company laid off around 90 people, shutting down several games in development, including one based on the Transformers franchise. A year later, Niantic shut down its Los Angeles studio and laid off 230 people, a quarter of its workforce at the time, coinciding with mass job cuts across the industry post-pandemic. The closure meant cancellations of a handful of major projects, including games with high profile partners like the NBA and Marvel. And even Pokemon Go's lustre has faded from its glory days. On Apple's App store, it's still a top 10 role playing game, but it has fallen out of the top 100 free games. Hanke insists the sale was not due to games underperforming or revenue woes. 'It's not a case of abandoning the [games] business,' he said. 'You look around at the games we have on the market — revenue is doing well,' he added, pointing to the 'successful' launch of Monster Hunter Now in 2023, where players seek out and fight virtual monsters. The game brought in $142 million last year, a 23% jump year over year, according to Aldora. Joost van Dreunen, founder of Aldora Intelligence who's researched the industry for 15 years, agrees: 'This wasn't a fire sale to save the company.' The biggest reason for the split, Niantic executives say, is focus. Inside the company, there has always been competition for time and resources between the game development side and technology side, which developed all of the augmented reality and mapping tools that underpin the games. The latter, for example, built Niantic's 'visual positioning system' which could precisely pinpoint a person's exact location at a specific date and time (like if you caught a Squirtle at Grand Central Terminal at noon). Its technology portfolio also includes Scaniverse, an app Niantic acquired in 2021 that lets a user create a 3D model of a room by scanning it with their phone, similar to how you'd take a panoramic photo. Now, the company can devote all of its energy to the enterprise business — even if it means Niantic can no longer lean on its primary cash generator. 'We will have to focus on our own revenue,' said CTO Brian McClendon. 'And we won't have to split our attention between maintaining and improving Monster Hunter, and Pokemon Go revenue and business, versus addressing just this,' he said, referring to the enterprise platform. Brandon Gleklen, a principal at Battery Ventures, which first invested in Niantic's 2019 Series C, told Forbes the move was inevitable, noting that juggling games and developing AI 'was like two bodies running a three-legged race.' The pivot to enterprise is a decidedly buttoned-up swerve for a company with such a playful culture. It was named after the Niantic, a wrecked whaling ship that brought prospectors to San Francisco during the 1849 gold rush, its remains now residing beneath the TransAmerica tower. As an homage to the vessel, Niantic's lobby is styled like an old ship's deck with an antique cannon and scuba suit. But Hanke says the new strategy is a return to his roots. A pioneer in digital mapping, Hanke cofounded Keyhole in 2001, a satellite imagery startup that Google bought in 2004 for about $35 million in stock and used as the basis for Google Maps. After ascending to lead Google's global mapping operations, he began Niantic in 2010 as a small gaming division within the sprawling tech giant. It released Ingress, a sci-fi capture-the-flag game, two years later, and after the game became widely popular, Niantic was spun out into an independent company in 2015. (Google is still an investor in Niantic Spatial.) Then came Pokemon Go. Released in 2016, the game's placement of virtual Pokemon characters in real locations spurred millions of people to explore the outdoors, a novelty for an online game in an era of mounting screentime. It inspired meetups and events around the world. While several businesses limped through the pandemic, Pokemon Go surged as people looked for socially distanced activities outside. Three days after its release, it had more users than Twitter at the time. After just two months, it became the biggest mobile game ever in the U.S., clocking 21 million users a day. It was a cash cow, but that success came with lots of baggage. It takes a lot of work and money to nurture a megahit, and Niantic was throwing resources at keeping creating new features to keep people coming back. Meanwhile, coming up with a followup success became even more difficult. 'In the years since Pokémon GO's launch, the mobile market has become crowded and changes to the app store and the mobile advertising landscape have made it increasingly hard to launch new mobile games at scale,' Hanke wrote in a memo to employees during the 2023 layoff. 'We're not in the business of making weapons systems.' So the mobile game developer did the unimaginable: it ditched the games business. 'I don't think maximizing the value for Pokemon Go for the next 10 years is necessarily where [Hanke's] heart is at,' said Saar Gur, general partner at CRV, which invested in Niantic's Series C. The idea is to pitch Niantic's core technologies to businesses, like its visual positioning system, which could be useful to enterprises in confirming important deliveries were made, instead of just taking a photo of the package in the doorway, said McClendon. Scaniverse could allow a technician from an HVAC company to remotely survey an area and annotate the virtual space. Niantic Spatial has a handful of clients so far. The Singapore tourism board is using its tech to create an augmented reality tour of the country's popular Flower Dome, the largest glass greenhouse in the world. The closed-door pilot, set to launch next month, will let guests use headsets to see digital overlays with information about the various flower species, which pop up as they walk through the garden, said Gregory Yap, vice president of the Americas for the Singapore tourism board. A deal with government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton gives access to Niantic's logistics and mapping tools, like its scanning tech and visual positioning, which provides precise location tracking down to the centimeter, to all of the company's corporate clients. One unannounced client, Hanke said, is working on a development that's 'part theme park, and part office park, and part residential.' And Niantic hasn't ruled out doing business with the military. 'We will have customers in the government, public sector space that could include military customers,' Hanke said, though he does draw one line: 'We're not in the business of making weapons systems." The lifeblood for AI models is data, and Pokemon Go hoovered it up in droves. Spinning off the games division, however, doesn't mean Niantic is giving up the firehose, the company said. Niantic will continue to provide the game's underlying mapping technology to Scopely even after the sale, now as a vendor instead of proprietor. That means Niantic Spatial will still have access to the location data that allowed it to build its AI models in the first place, said Tory Smith, director of product management for the map platform. 'It's not like there's a spigot being shut off,' he said. 'We just can't control how it evolves over time.' Nor can the company control who has access to it. When Niantic announced the sale to Culver City, California-based Scopely in March, the company drew ire for selling its popular games portfolio — and the user data that comes with it — to a venture owned by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund. Hanke dismisses that concern. 'The rules of operation there are pretty clear, in the sense that Niantic and Scopely are the keepers of that,' said Hanke. 'So there wouldn't be any access to that, or any usage of that, outside of those companies.' In a statement, a Scopely spokesperson said the company 'maintains autonomous and independent operations.' 'Player data always has and will continue to be handled in accordance with strict data privacy laws and regulations, as well as stored exclusively on U.S.-based servers,' the company said. Some critics see Saudi Arabia's investments in video games and entertainment as a means to distract from its track record on human rights. Hanke said Niantic considered those points when it chose its buyer. 'We thought about that. We discussed and debated it,' he said. 'From our own personal observations, and the people that we've worked with in the Kingdom, I think there's a real desire there to become a more open liberal society.' When Niantic announced last November that it had created AI models based on location data collected by its games, there was more outcry. Some players felt blindsided their information was being used to train AI without their knowledge. Hanke strongly denied that, saying data wasn't collected when people just walked around playing games — only when players performed specific actions while during gameplay, like scanning a PokeStop to get in-game rewards like power-ups, and were asked for explicit consent to improve the company's systems. (McClendon acknowledged that AI wasn't mentioned specifically because the models weren't in development when the disclosure was written. It still does not reference AI, but after the deal closes, Niantic said the games business will roll out new terms of service that expand on its data policies.) To mark the sale of its games business and the beginning of its play in AI, Niantic held a party in early May across the street from headquarters at Sens, a tony Mediterranean restaurant overlooking the bay. At the party, Hanke and employees shared stories and memories as they said goodbye to the company in its current form. But after the deal closes, the gaming employees won't go very far. They'll move to a Scopely office a short walk away. The Pokemon stuffed animals will likely join them, Hanke said.
Economic Times
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Economic Times
Is Pokémon running out of ideas? Ground-type Charmander leak sparks fan backlash in Gen 10 rumour mill
TIL Creatives AI generated image When longtime Pokémon fan Aaron Lucero saw a Ground-type Charmander trending online this weekend, his reaction summed up what much of the fandom was feeling: 'Again? They're doing this again?' Lucero, like thousands of others, stumbled across the latest Generation 10 'leak' making the rounds online. The alleged info drop, which originated from 4chan and gained traction through a repost by the Hidden Power Podcast , outlines ambitious plans for the next mainline game, possibly titled Pokémon Gales & Tides , rumoured for the Nintendo Switch 2. Also read: 'Pokémon Go' maker nears $3.5 billion deal to sell games unitThe leak describes a tropical archipelago setting featuring 16 major islands, 150+ smaller ones, a new battle mechanic called 'Gigaxis,' and three new starter Pokémon: a Fire Goat, Water Octopus, and Grass Snail. But one bizarre detail is dominating conversation more than any of that: a new ground-type regional variant of Pokémon community has always had strong feelings about its mascots, but the idea of giving Charmander yet another region-specific twist, this time as a Ground-type has left fans baffled and, in many cases, frustrated. 'I don't care about the rest of it, just please for the love of god stop making a new Charmander every other region,' one fan wrote. Another chimed in: 'Only believing this because a regional variant for the Charizard line sounds exactly in line of what Pokémon would do lmao.' This isn't the first time Charmander and its evolutionary line have stolen the spotlight. Mega Charizard X , Y , and Gigantamax Charizard have all had their day. But for a growing segment of the fanbase, the overexposure is wearing thin, especially when there are over 1,000 other creatures in the Pokémon roster. Despite the frenzy, there's a high chance this entire leak is a fabrication. While 4chan has occasionally been a source of accurate leaks, its track record is sketchy at best. The anonymity of the platform makes it a breeding ground for unverified information, especially when it comes to major game franchises like Pokémon . Also read: Pokémon GO acquisition: Scopely buys Niantic's gaming division for $3.5 Billion – What it means for players and the future of the game 'If any of this ends up being true, I will livestream myself eating a Pikachu plushie,' one skeptical fan joked, echoing the mood of many. Still, it's fun to imagine. With Pokémon Legends: Z-A already confirmed as the next official release, anything beyond that is pure speculation. But the growing backlash to Charmander's repeated reinvention is a clear sign: the fanbase wants fresh ideas, not another familiar flame in a new coat of mud.
Newsweek
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
Pokémon Go is Finally Adding Remote Shadow Raids and Max Battles
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Entertainment gossip and news from Newsweek's network of contributors The developer of Pokémon Go has announced that the game is finally going to be adding long-requested features aimed at improving access to some of its more desirable features. In a post on the official Pokémon Go website, the development team revealed that it would soon allow players to join Shadow Raids and Max Battles remotely using Remote Raid Passes. The daily remote raid limit is also being increased from five to 10, and a new bundle for Remote Raid Passes has been added to the Pokémon Go web store, which includes two Remote Raid Passes for $2.99. Key art for Dynamax Max Battles in Pokémon Go, showing multiple trainers and their Pokémon staring down a large Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise. Key art for Dynamax Max Battles in Pokémon Go, showing multiple trainers and their Pokémon staring down a large Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise. Niantic / Scopely Shadow Raids will open up to remote raiding starting with the Crown Clash: Taken Over event, which starts on May 13, 2025 – with the increased remote raid limit going into effect on the same day – while Max Battles will open up to remote raiding starting on May 19, 2025, just before the Gigantamax Machamp Max Battle Day. Remote raids will continue for both features permanently following their introduction, and in-person Max Battle raiders will now earn more Premier Balls and XP than before. The change comes after years of frustration from the player base about the lack of availability for remote raids in certain features, with Gigantamax Battles in particular drawing significant ire due to their difficulty. It can often take up to 40 players to take down a Gigantamax Pokémon, a task that was logistically challenging to achieve in-person, especially outside of big cities. It also comes after the announcement that Pokémon Go developer Niantic would sell its game division to Monopoly Go publisher Scopely, itself a subsidiary of Savvy Games, which is owned by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. At the time, the Pokémon Go development team assured players that no major changes to the game would take place due to the acquisition, and according to an interview with Eurogamer, these changes are not evidence of the team going back on its word. "These changes take a long time to get into the game," Pokémon Go senior producer John Funtanilla told the outlet. "These are things we take measured approaches to, and it's entirely a Pokémon Go decision. These are things we have looked at for years - we've looked at the data, we've looked at the community feedback. It's entirely the leadership here, internally, and definitely 100 percent our decision to make these changes."
Business Mayor
02-05-2025
- Business
- Business Mayor
Monopoly Go passes $5B in gross bookings at a speed unseen in mobile gaming
Scopely announced today that Monopoly Go! has surpassed $5 billion in gross bookings, and that it has hit this target within 24 months — faster than any game in mobile gaming history. The company revealed the figure and thanked the players who have helped the title reach that goal, and gave a sneak preview of what's coming in the near future. Massimo Maietti, Scopely's president of gaming, said in a blog post, 'To provide context: over the past decade, more than 1.4 million mobile titles have launched globally. Among them, MONOPOLY GO! reached this financial milestone in just 24 months—significantly ahead of the previous benchmark of 40 months.' Monopoly Go! recently celebrated its 2-year anniversary, during which time it's hosted millions of players. The studio also noted that, in terms of numbers, players have made 500 million in-game connections and 450 million invites, and that 20 million players engage with the game's community channels on a regular basis. Maietti also gave a view on what's coming next for Monopoly Go!, including that the studio plans to implement new board designs and enhanced PvP mechanics, alongside a roadmap of tournaments and themed events. It's also planning to continue evolving the sticker system. Maietti said, 'As we enter our third year, our mission is unchanged: to continue delivering a best-in-class, deeply socially connected, and creatively engaging experience for our players.'
Forbes
01-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Monopoly Go! Passes $5 Billion In Two Years, But Journey Wasn't Easy
(Image courtesy of Scopely) The mobile game Monopoly Go! just passed another big milestone, generating $5 billion in revenues in slightly less than two years, what its publisher, Scopely, says is the fastest a mobile title has ever reached that prodigious height. But it wasn't easy creating a game that perhaps no one expected would ever, especially so quickly, join an elite club (others include Genshin Impact, Pokemon Go, and Royal Match) among the 1.4 million games released on mobile app stores, said Scopely co-CEO Javier Ferreira. Scopely spent $70 million and seven years, beginning in 2016, trying to figure out the best way to adapt the original board game for a very different experience of gaming on a mobile phone, with a free-to-play mechanic and a strong social component. 'We knew Monopoly was a beloved (intellectual property), which in some way is saying it was a beloved experience,' Ferreira said. 'This is the key. Or maybe a beloved feeling when people were playing Monopoly. The question for us was how do we bring the game to mobile?' A screen shot from Monopoly Go! (Game image courtesy of Scopely) A straight conversion wasn't likely to be successful because it couldn't really replicate the actual feeling of 'of getting rich, of bankrupting others, not just others but family members,' Ferreira said. 'And do it in a way where the stakes are low, where it felt very playful and fun.' Early iterations of a mobile version were 'too skill-based. We didn't see audiences reacting positively to that," especially for a game that relies so heavily on luck and dice rolls, Ferreira said. Other early versions weren't social enough. 'That's kind of a key idea,' Ferreira said. 'It's a game that's fun, not just because of the mechanic itself, but because of who you are playing it with.' One key in unlocking a successful mobile take on a very well established board game was optimizing it so people could easily play with friends and family in 'your real social graph,' rather than 'the social graph inside the game," Ferreira said. That social web of connections helped encourage people to keep coming back repeatedly over weeks and months, and now, years. Now, some 10 million players access the game daily, according to Scopely. And Ferreira said that while a $70 million development budget seems steep, 'you can't complain. In free-to-play live services, when you're thinking about titles that can have a life cycle of 10 or 20 years, how much you invest in development isn't that expensive. (Focus instead on) how do you make a good game? Your investment will always be really good." The company, like all operators of live-service mobile titles, relies heavily on data to track what's working for which players, and constantly adjust its various parameters. 'How do you use data to listen to what players are telling you, so you can continually evolve the game and make it better every day,' Ferreira said. Such constant tuning is more vital than ever in a highly competitive fight for players' attention, not just from all those other games on mobile and other devices, but also social media, traditional media, live events, sports, music and so much else. The game business has been severely challenged the past couple of years, after the peri- and post-pandemic game-playing rush abated beginning around 2023. People are back to many parts of their old routines and ways to spend their leisure time, cutting game time notably for many. That makes careful construction of games to maximize engagement vital, said Nate Jones, vice president of corporate strategy and development for Sony Interactive Entertainment, the PlayStation unit of Sony. 'Consumer media time is plateauing,' Jones said, speaking at Monday's Los Angeles Games Conference legal & finance summit. 'Games have avoided (problems with) that, but they may not in the future. There's been no net new growth, and more competition for audiences than we have seen a few decades.' Ferreira said Monopoly Go!'s monetization structure isn't 'particularly unique,' but it was built around two big key performance indicators: 'an incredible long-term retention curve for the game that was better and higher than we had ever seen here at Scopely. The second thing that's driven success is the virality, the social dynamics in the game. Those social dynamics have been key to driving retention, but also downloads.' FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder The game's success over the past two years wasn't a big factor in the $4.9 billion 2023 acquisition of Scopely by Saudi-backed Savvy Games, Ferreira said, but it certainly has made the transition to Savvy ownership a much easier experience. 'It mattered not so much pre-acquisition, but post-acquisition, it allowed Savvy to feel pretty great about the investment they've made," Ferreira said. It's worked so well that that Scopely just announced another big deal, buying Niantic's game unit for $3.9 billion. That deal brings rights to augmented-reality pioneer Pokemon Go among much else. To help keep Monopoly Go! top of mind with different slices of its audiences, the company has done multiple cross-over deals, including with Marvel and, beginning today, a two-month collaboration with another big Disney brand, Star Wars (see trailer at end of story), said Ferreira. Monopoly Go's first-year success, when it topped $3 billion in revenues, was invoked multiple times by LA Games Conference panelists. 'You couldn't get two more different studios, but Scopely and (Baldur's Gate III maker) Larian Studios understood what their communities needed, and delivered,' said Eugene Evans, a former long-time executive at Hasbro (which has owned the Monopoly IP for years) and founding principal of Infinite Ventures. One advantage Monopoly Go! had is what Evans called 'a 90-year first-time user experience. They have been training people to play Monopoly for many years. Many players who paid there (for in-game assets) have never paid for an online game before. That game broke through all expectations. Nobody knew it was going to do $3 billion in its first 12 months.' Both L:arian and Scopely, in building very different kinds of game experiences for PC and mobile respectively, understood that merely delivering a good game wasn't enough, Evans said. In each case, giving players reasons to keep coming back, keep sharing about the game, and keep recruiting friends and family to join them, was crucial for long-term success. 'People only have two things, disposable money and disposable time,' Evans said. 'It used to be (the formula for success was), 'How many products can we sell them.?' Now, it's, 'How much time can we get them to spend?'' Evans also suggested that Monopoly Go! and similar well-constructed, easy-to-learn mobile games have been riding a wave of democratization in who plays games these days, even if they don't identify as 'gamers.' 'The average age of gamers is 25 years older now than it was 25 years ago,' Evans said. 'We're all gamers now. We've all grown up with it. That includes people who play Candy Crush or Monopoly Go! every day, and they'll still say, 'No, I'm not a gamer.''
