Pokémon Go maker Niantic sells its sport division...

Niantic Labs simply introduced that it has after . The Saudi Arabia-owned firm Scopely has for $3.5 billion. Scopely was based in Los Angeles however was bought utilizing cash from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, in any other case referred to as the Saudi Public Funding Fund (PIF).

The settlement consists of most of Niantic’s portfolio of AR video games, together with Pokémon Go, Monster Hunter Now and Pikmin Bloom, amongst a number of others. It additionally consists of the corporate’s social companion apps for Pokémon Go, Campfire and Wayfarer. The deal remains to be topic to regulatory approval and different closing circumstances.

Scopely says it can obtain “Niantic’s total staff of remarkable gamemakers and category-leading video games.” There are a few titles, nevertheless, lacking from this buy. Niantic Labs will retain the AR gaming titles Peridot and Ingress.

Scopely is a serious participant within the cell video games business. It’s the corporate behind video games like Star Trek Fleet Command, Marvel Strike Power and Monopoly Go!, to call a couple of.

As for Niantic’s video games division, it’s a shadow of its former self. Pokémon Go engaged greater than 500 million gamers in its first yr, however the sport’s endurance has waned in latest occasions. At its peak, the cell monster battler attracted over 230 million gamers every month. These days, that quantity has shrunk to round 80 million.

The corporate has additionally struggled to copy the Pikachu-shaped lightning in a bottle with different titles. It tried to reskin the Pokémon Go formulation onto different franchises like Harry Potter and NBA basketball, however nothing caught. The Monster Hunter and Pikmin tasks, nevertheless, are nonetheless lively.

This led Niantic to cancel a number of video games and . Niantic’s valuation has taken a number of hits and the corporate’s long-promised “real-world metaverse” has but to materialize. If the sale goes by, the corporate will give attention to constructing out its standalone entity Niantic Spatial. This group builds real-world 3D maps and is led by firm CEO John Hanke.

The Saudi PIF has turn into a serious participant within the video games business lately. It not solely owns Scopely and its mother or father firm Savvy Video games Group, however has monetary stakes in organizations like Nintendo, EA and Activision Blizzard.