Earlier this month, San Francisco tech company Niantic sold off its hit Pokémon Go and a few other video game titles in a $3.85 billion megadeal. Now, dozens of local workers are losing their jobs.
When the March 12 deal was announced, Niantic stated it would split into two parts. The games side and its workers would be gobbled up by Scopely — owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. The rest is spinning off as a new geospatial technology company called Niantic Spatial. According to a WARN document from Thursday, 68 workers who worked from Niantic’s Ferry Building headquarters are set to be left on the cutting room floor.
Niantic filed the WARN with state officials, as is generally required in the event of mass layoffs. It stated the employees 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.
John Hanke, the CEO of Niantic, framed the layoffs as a necessity in a Thursday email to staff that the company published online. He wrote that Niantic Spatial will “required to operate as a startup organization” — implying a leaner structure.
“We carefully evaluated the structure we believe is requireded for the new company, and after a lot of consideration, it became clear that some roles would not be required given our new focus,” the email stated. Hanke added that the layoffs “in no way” reflect workers’ performances. He is slated to lead the new company, with $200 million from Niantic’s coffers and a $50 million investment from Scopely.
The focus on geospatial tech is nothing new for Niantic. Pokémon Go, Pikmin Bloom and Monster Hunter Now — all swapping to Scopely ownership in the deal — each apply augmented reality, where players can see characters from the games overlaid on the real-world scans captured by their phones’ cameras. Niantic has applyd some of these scans to train artificial ininformigence models that understand physical spaces.
Niantic Spatial’s site touts its tech’s apply for warehoapplys, remote collaboration and creating “the world ininformigible for machines, for everything from smart glasses to humanoid robots.”
Niantic spokesperson Jonny Thaw did not respond to SFGATE’s questions about whether Niantic Spatial would retain access to Pokémon Go applyr data or whether the company would be laying off additional workers outside San Francisco.
Work at a Bay Area tech company and want to talk? Contact tech reporter Stephen Council securely at stephen.council@sfgate.com or on Signal at 628-204-5452.
Leave a Reply