Niantic, the developer behind the hugely successful Pokemon Go has announced some surprising, and massively disappointing news. Citing revenue problems and too-rapid expansion, the developer has canceled their highly anticipated Marvel: World of Heroes whilst also closing the Los Angeles branch and laying off over 230 staff in the process!
Thanks to the folks over at Kotaku obtaining an internal email sent around to employees of Niantic, we know that company founder John Hanke has gone a long way in explaining his decision at least, although it’s hard to expect that’ll have made the now jobless employees feel any better.
Niantic – No More Marvel, Pokemon Go is Good Though!
Citing such reasons as the now over-saturated AR market, much in thanks to the success of their own game Pokemon Go since 2016, revenue declining as expenses grew and a lack of long-term engagement for the companies projects, it simply hasn’t met the internal goals and aims the company had set for itself.
It may sound to many that Hanke is placing the blame on the employees and the consumer, but he followed up those reasons with a self-reflective moment.
“We also bear responsibility for our own performance… Today’s highly competitive mobile gaming market requires dazzling quality and innovation. It also requires strong monetization and a social core which can drive viral growth and long term engagement. Teams need platform tools that are force multipliers, enabling them to build at the highest quality with powerful engagement features quickly and efficiently. Our AR map and platform must deliver the features that developers want in a robust and reliable way. We have not met our goals in all of these areas.”
Niantic have said they’ll be planning on focusing all of their attention on Pokemon Go for now canceling their other projects, including Marvel: World of Heroes. Announced less than a year ago in early September 2022, the game was billed as a game where you could create your own character with their own origin story. Gameplay would have been very similar to Pokemon Go, or at least, the mechanics of it would, with users having to move/walk around to interact with the game, foiling crime, levelling up and more.
Unfortunately though, due to the staff layoffs, the studio closure and the refocusing of the studio, it looks like we’ll never really know how well the Pokemon Go formula would have translated to Marvel, nor how it would have fared in a saturated AR and Marvel market. Either way, a Marvel game being canceled is never good news. Would you have given it a go? Let us know in the comments!
Source: Kotaku
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