Niantic has canceled four different internal projects that were at various points of development and cut eight percent of its current staff.
As first reported by Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, the Pokémon Go developer is set to lay off somewhere between 85 to 90 employees as the company is “facing a time of economic turmoil.”
In an internal staff email obtained by Bloomberg, Niantic CEO John Hanke said the company is dealing with economic turmoil despite already “reducing costs in a variety of already.” He also talked about the need to “further streamline our operations in order to best position the company to weather any economic storms that may lie ahead.”
These cuts were made so the company could refocus on “key priorities,” according to Niantic.
“We recently decided to stop production on some projects and reduce our workforce by about 8% to focus on our key priorities,” a Niantic spokesperson said to Bloomberg. “We are grateful for the contributions of those leaving Niantic and we are supporting them through this difficult transition.”
This cut not only impacts staff, but also involved four different projects being canceled, including Transformers: Heavy Metal, which had already been released for testing in certain regions. The other canned projects were a collaboration with British theatre company Punchdrunk and two titles only known by the codenames Blue Sky and Snowball.
These decisions were made despite the continued success of Pokémon Go, which recently surpassed $6 billion in lifetime player spending even while dealing with community backlash. Additionally, the news comes just a day after Niantic announced its partnership with the NBA to launch a new game, NBA All-World, later this year.
Niantic had previously ended its work on Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, shutting the game down earlier this year, and likewise canceled Catan: World Adventure after an early access period in 2021.
