Almost two weeks ago, Niantic announced the sale of its gaming assets, including Pokémon GO, for a cool $3.5 billion to Scopely. Alongside this announcement, Niantic stated they are starting a new geospatial AI company, Niantic Spatial Inc. right away. Staff working on the games they developed and sold were to be moved to Scopely.

We highlighted this in our article on the sale:

Although Scopely claims that “the entire Pokémon GO team is staying together through this partnership”, it remains to be seen if this will last beyond the handover stage as well.

Well, so far this is still true – as an announcement on Niantic’s website (20th March) revealed that jobs will be impacted within Niantic Spatial Inc., rather than the Pokémon GO side that Scopely now controls. Well, impacted really means fired. Here’s how CEO John Hanke shared the news with his ‘Niantics’ (as he phrased it):

Niantics,

As I shared last week, Niantic is splitting into two companies, with the acquisition of our games business and team, and the spin off of our technology platform into Niantic Spatial Inc.

Thank you for your patience as we worked through the structure of the new company we are creating, which will be a more focused organization dedicated to delivering on the promise of geospatial AI.

As we embark on our new journey as Niantic Spatial, we will need to operate as a startup organization, focused on the road ahead. We carefully evaluated the structure we believe is needed for the new company, and after a lot of consideration, it became clear that some roles would not be required given our new focus. This week, we are sharing this news with the individuals whose roles are impacted.

These decisions are never easy; they in no way reflect the individuals’ performance, and we understand their impact on people’s lives. We deeply appreciate the talented individuals who helped us get here and for their many contributions, and will support them as they transition to new opportunities.

jh

SFGate reports that 68 workers will be fired – sorry, impacted – from Niantic’s Ferry Building headquarters. Employees (soon former) will leave the company in waves on May 20 and June 15.

Per the document, the cuts include a chief technology officer and a chief financial officer, a vice president, various directors, a general counsel and about a dozen software engineers.

As noted in Niantic’s announcement, and highlighted in John Hanke’s celebratory LinkedIn post about the sale and Niantic Spatial Inc. two weeks ago, this new company was being funded with $250 million of capital. Somehow, this isn’t enough to ‘avoid’ operating as a startup organisation and hence justifies these firings. They cut 8% of their workforce in 2022 alongside closing multiple games, so this isn’t new. Don’t let the news of further firings dampen the celebrations of John Hanke’s announcement however!

Sorry, impacts.

Edited by Nah.