Scopely is buying Niantic’s games for $3.5bn – Mobilegamer.biz

Scopely has confirmed that it is to acquire Niantic’s games arm for $3.5bn.

The deal includes flagship game Pokémon Go, plus Capcom collab Monster Hunter Now and Pikmin Bloom, a game made in partnership with Nintendo.

Scopely says it will acquire all of Niantic’s game teams, including companion apps and services Campfire and Wayfarer. Niantic’s games business has over 30m MAU, said Scopely, and drove more than $1bn in revenue in 2024. Pokémon Go also had 100m unique players last year, the statement said.

Niantic’s game teams will continue to be led by longtime studio leaders Kei Kawai and Ed Wu.

Scopely co-CEOs Javier Ferreira and Walter Driver said in a blog post: “Players can expect that these games, apps, and events will stay true to the experiences they know and love and remain driven by the same dedicated development teams behind these beloved products.”

“Scopely’s role post-closing will be to empower the Niantic game team to pursue their ambitious roadmap by providing resources and support, all in service of giving players more of what they want from their favorite games.”

They later added: “With the Niantic games business, our combined portfolio will create one of the largest player communities in the world with over half a billion players. We will also be one of the only games companies with two top 10 mobile games (Pokémon Go and Monopoly Go), which each achieved two of the biggest mobile launches of all time during their respective debuts in 2016 and 2023.”

The co-CEOs also appeared to tease further M&A to come. “We are continually looking for industry- and category-leading products that complement our expertise and portfolio,” they said. “Just last year, we met with over 800 companies, assessing many products, teams, and technology.”

Niantic will now spin off its technology platform into a standalone entity, Niantic Spatial, led by Niantic founder and CEO John Hanke. That company will continue to own and operate live games Ingress Prime and Peridot.

Addressing Pokémon Go players in his own blog, Pokémon Go lead Ed Wu added: “With Scopely’s full commitment, experience and resources, we’re going to make Pokémon Go the very best it can be…we have invested to empower thousands of Community Leaders and Ambassadors who lead millions of Trainers to play together in the real world, and Scopely is in full agreement that this highly-admired program will be a priority to invest in together.”

“Our partners at The Pokémon Company have always been central to how we build this game together, starting with the physics of the first Poké Ball throw that we hand-tuned together,” Wu continued. “I am incredibly grateful for their daily wisdom, guidance, and careful stewardship of our shared vision for discovering Pokémon in the real world, and I’m very excited that our partnership with The Pokémon Company will continue as it has for the last decade.”