Software Billion-dollar deal for "Pokémon Go"
The popular smartphone game "Pokémon Go" is getting a new owner. The previous developer company Niantic sold the majority of its games business for 3.5 billion dollars to the games producer Scopely, which is backed by the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund.
12.03.2025, 18:13
SDA
Niantic and Scopely emphasized in blog posts that "Pokémon Go" and other games such as "Pikmin Bloom" and "Monster Hunter Now" will continue to be developed by the same team. Among other things, Niantic wants to focus on artificial intelligence and its geodata platform and is keeping two games developed entirely in-house: "Ingress Prime" and "Peridot".
"Pokémon Go" was an instant worldwide hit when it was launched in summer 2016. The game allows you to catch characters from the Pokémon games on your smartphone screen in a real-life environment.
In the years that followed, Niantic was unable to repeat the success of Pokémon Go with other games. However, a hard core of die-hard fans continues to guarantee the company solid revenues.
"Pokémon Go" dominates among Niantic games
The sale has revealed some figures on usage and revenue for the first time. Scopely announced that "Pokémon Go" has 20 million active players at least once a week.
Around half of them play every day. The average daily usage time is 40 minutes.
The figures also demonstrate how dominant "Pokémon Go" is in the Niantic games business: all games together attract 30 million users per month. Last year, the games brought in more than one billion dollars.
The deal is still subject to approval by the authorities and is expected to be completed by the end of the year. Scopely already produces games such as "Monopoly Go!", "Star Trek Fleet Command" and "MARVEL Strike Force". A few weeks ago, the financial service Bloomberg reported on the pending sale of the Niantic games and also mentioned the price of 3.5 billion dollars.
