In 2016, Pokémon Go took the world by storm, setting records for software downloads and creating a frenzy in the media. Fast forward nine years and several less successful games later, Niantic Inc., the developer behind the sensation, is reportedly in talks to sell its games division to Saudia Arabia-owned Scopely Inc., per a report from Bloomberg. The rumored price tag for this division? A staggering $3.5 billion. Niantic has yet to make an official statement regarding this potential deal.
Pokémon Go’s potential sale marks another unexpected chapter in the story of one of the gaming industry’s most unconventional CEOs.
In 2001, John Hanke co-founded a mapping technology company named Keyhole, which was later acquired by Google and played a vital role in the development of Google Earth and Google Maps. Riding high on this success, Hanke decided in 2010 to lead a team within Google that would explore the possibilities of augmented reality gaming.
The team’s first major project was Ingress, a global augmented reality game launched in 2013 that quickly gained a following of seven million players. However, Ingress was more than just a game—it was a proof of concept. In 2015, Hanke spun off the Google division to form an independent company known as Niantic. A year later, in collaboration with Google, Nintendo, and The Pokemon Company, Niantic released Pokémon Go.
By the end of 2016, Pokémon Go had been downloaded by over 500 million users worldwide.
In the years following the success of Pokémon Go, Hanke often spoke at conferences about the vast potential of augmented reality to merge the real world with the virtual one. He envisioned a future where players could interact in shared virtual environments while physically being in different locations, all made possible by Niantic’s technology.
When the Covid-19 pandemic struck in 2020, millions of players found themselves stuck indoors. As the pandemic continued, Niantic began to discontinue some of its titles. In 2023, the company had to let go of 230 employees, constituting around a quarter of its workforce. Hanke acknowledged the slower-than-expected growth of the AR market and stressed the importance of focusing on Pokémon Go amidst these changes.
Now, it seems that Hanke and the remaining team members at Niantic are looking to their roots for inspiration. The data collected from all Niantic apps has been used to develop extensive geospatial models in a bid to achieve spatial intelligence. An update from Niantic’s Eric Brachmann and Victor Adrian Prisacariu last November highlighted the company’s efforts in creating a Large Geospatial Model using advanced machine learning techniques to connect and understand scenes globally.
As we find ourselves in 2025, the future seems to be all about AI.