Reports circulated last month that Niantic was looking to sell off its gaming division and today, the Pokémon Go developer just confirmed that it has been acquired by Scopely, which is part of Savvy Games Group, for $3.5 billion. The news was broken via a lengthy Scopely blog post, which says, “Today we shared publicly that we signed an agreement to acquire the games business of Niantic, Inc, which includes its team, games, apps and services, including “Pokémon Go,” “Pikmin Bloom,” and “Monster Hunter Now.”
It is also worth noting that this deal not only includes the titles mentioned above, but their companion apps, as well as Campfire and Wayfarer. While acquisitions tend to come with cuts and bad news for workers Scopely is saying that all Niantic game-making team members along with their leaders Kei Kawai and Ed Wu will continue to develop and operate business as usual.
The Pokémon Go lead Ed Wu released further comments via another blog post on the Pokémon GO website citing how he believes this move will be a “positive step” for the community and the long-term future for the game itself. He also assured fans that the Pokémon Go team will stick together, and thanks to Scopely’s “commitment, experience and resources” they can make Pokémon Go the best possible game it could be.
Stats following Pokémon Go being acquired by Scopely
Coming out of this, Scopely provided statistics around Niantic’s game business which did include numbers for Pokémon Go, Pikmin Bloom, and Monster Hunter. As expected, Pokémon GO has remained in the top 10 for mobile games in engagement, with over 20 million weekly active players. Another cool stat here is trainers around the world have collectively explored more than 30 billion miles together.
As for games like Pikmin Bloom, players accumulated 3.94 trillion steps in 2024 alone and hit its highest active player count last year. According to them, Monster Hunter Now surpassed 15 million downloads within 7 months and 50% of that audience played the mobile game every day of the week.
The mobile sector still proves to be a titan within the gaming world. With popular IPs like Pokémon and Monster Hunter at their fingertips, it looks like brighter days are ahead for Scopely and their newly acquired mobile game darlings.
