Niantic shutters LA office, lays off 230 employees

Niantic is shutting down its LA-based studio, it announced today. As part of a restructuring, the company is sunsetting and canceling two major projects and laying off about 230 employees. Instead, Niantic refocusing all of its efforts into augmenting Pokémon GO and promoting it’s other titles, including the recently launched Peridot.

John Hanke, Niantic’s founder and CEO, said in the announcement that the company had “allowed our expenses to grow faster than revenue” as it expanded in the wake of the pandemic. But the projects it launched “have not delivered revenues commensurate with those investments. This change will bring expenses and revenue back into line while preserving our core assets and long-term upside.”