Niantic to lay of 8% of staff - Is the Ingress team affected?

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  • SSSputnikSSSputnik ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited July 2022

    Quite a bit I think. Pokemon mostly.

    However considering they just had only Ingress previously...

    Depends how many staff they hired or money splashed on junk after popping the Pokecork.

    We keep getting told how tiny the Ingress team is so....

    Post edited by SSSputnik on
  • VaskinCallVaskinCall ✭✭✭✭

    In September I'm planning a vacation in another country, maybe I'll play, if I have time ::))

    But so I do not know, after almost 3 months somehow did not care ... I think the game lately very much mutilated. I don't want to play links under fields, I don't want to play with spoofers. And the company that spit in my face, I don't want to support either.

  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

    According to LinkedIn they have over 1100 employees. They've also invested in a bunch of games that haven't made any money, and that's an expensive proposition. They may not be as profitable as you think they are.

  • mortuusmortuus ✭✭✭✭✭

    but now they have twiced ditched a game after a closed beta in only 4-5 countries for a year, this seems like a failed attempt launching new games.... im skeptical for upcoming peridot...

  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

    @mortuus Yes, exactly.

    I've been noodling on this a lot and I've come to the conclusion that Niantic doesn't really understand what makes its games fun. Ingress has kept me highly-engaged for the better part of a decade now. Why? What about that game has drawn an audience that has been incredibly devoted to it for years?

    I play PoGo although I'm not a big fan and I couldn't care less about pokecritters themselves and I often find it tiresome. I play because I'm interested in the game mechanics and why people are so drawn to the game. I've played HPWU and Pikmin Bloom and for both I hit a point where I thought, "Why am I doing this? It's not fun or interesting, just repetitive." And then I quit. Both of them seem like Niantic just reskinned some of the gameplay features of PoGo and tossed them into a new game without really thinking about the fun factor.

  • SSSputnikSSSputnik ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited July 2022

    Agreed. All are basically variations on Farmville.

    They seem to be trying to do the same to Ingress which is why so many complain.

    The main thing that attracts with Ingress is competition against other players and playing as a team on occasion. All the others lack this.

    Having bigger and better 'things' only goes so far, beating an opponent is more satisfying.

  • gazzas89gazzas89 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Honestly, I old say at least 250 million dollars profit, and that's me assuming 50% revenue goes to tpc and 250 million spent of staffing and upkeep. Chances are, its much higher than that, and the company I'd values at 9 billion, so it will be making a hefty profit

  • EngrishEngrish ✭✭✭✭

    I originally thought they were going to **** the game when the Devra virus came to be. Virus that sucked the life out of portals and gave less to no cubes. When all the portals were dead NIA would turn off the scanner for good. But here we are like 6 years later.

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭

    The PoGo cash cow will eventually dry up to some degree. They will run out of Pokemon to release, shiny versions to release, etc. That games players demand a nearly continuous flow of events and they get it, but for every pokemon they release, they turn the clock closer to an end to content.

    So Niantic dumping money into games is smart, probably in hopes that something will stick and they can keep the cash coming in down the road. In the meantime, they're gonna need agents to keeping adding wayspots, reviewing them for eligibility and scanning those reviewed wayspots. Ya know, for the good of the game

  • gazzas89gazzas89 ✭✭✭✭✭

    In theory, they will never run out as there's no plans to stop the main series games. And as with meltan, tpc could make some pogo only pokemon whenever they want. But the way niantic have been treating their player base recently, I won't be surprised if the money does dry up fast (especially with the way they changed the adventure box this month, removing the egg incubators from it, make both that and the ultra bo really bad for value, just in time for an event where people were gonna buy them)

  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

    @ZeroHecksGiven "Niantic dumping money into games is smart" is a true statement, but only if they are doing it intelligently. My perception as an outsider is that they aren't.

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭

    Id say that’s par for the course with pretty much anything they touch, at least in the past few years. Existing games or future ones…

  • gazzas89gazzas89 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Easiest way to fix that as well would be to listen to their player bases, rather than saying "we know what you want, and it's not what you're telling us you want"

  • SSSputnikSSSputnik ✭✭✭✭✭

    ^^^^^^

  • tp235tp235 ✭✭✭✭

    Well, Ingress belongs to Niantic.

    If they say they will stop, it will end. If they don't, it won't.

    As of now, the CEO has no intention of closing Ingress, as far as I can tell from his recent interviews.

    So, there will be no conclusion even if outsiders here have a pub talk with each other.

    It is all just our own speculation arguing amongst ourselves.


    Also, Pokemon Go, Pikmin, and the NBA are on loan to Niantic.

    So even if they were big hits, if the lender says it's over, it's over.

    It closes when the Pokémon Company, in the case of Pokémon GO, or Nintendo, in the case of Pikmin, says it has stopped.

    We on the outside have no way of knowing why Transformers will close before its global launch, but as mentioned above, it will close when the rights holders, Hasbro and Paramount, say they are done.

    Niantic may have changed its mind in the three months since the new launch in March, but it seems more appropriate to say that the rights holders quit than to think that way.

    This is the fate of games with borrowed content.


    Also, since we're at this point, let me mention one scenario that would end Ingress other than Niantic going bankrupt.

    That is when CEO Hanke sells Niantic to another company.

    At that time, there will be no players in a flash and the game will be closed even if they have no intention of closing it.

    And many of the core Ingress players will jump at Hanke's new start.

  • edited July 2022

    So even if they were big hits, if the lender says it's over, it's over.

    Except:

    In an email to staff reviewed by Bloomberg, Niantic Chief Executive Officer John Hanke wrote that the company was “facing a time of economic turmoil” and had already been “reducing costs in a variety of areas.” But Hanke said Niantic needs to “further streamline our operations in order to best position the company to weather any economic storms that may lie ahead.” 

    This wasn't another company pulling the plug. It was Niantic choosing not to invest more resources into a game they didn't see a sufficient return being possible from.

    Ingress does not provide a sufficient return, but it's operating at such a small budget that it probably is able to maintain itself on Hanke's goodwill alone. That may not last forever, if Niantic continues to have 'economic turmoil'.

    And many of the core Ingress players will jump at Hanke's new start.

    Doubtful. Many of the bad decisions that Ingress players hate about the way the game's gone, can be laid directly at John Hanke's feet. He's a good entrepreneur. He's not a good game developer. Business is his forte, not entertainment, which is why Niantic's focus is building a platform other people can build games on.

    Post edited by Perringaiden on
  • tp235tp235 ✭✭✭✭

    Have you not read his autobiography?

    Of course the Prime scanner as we know it today is not due to his programming.

    However, I am aware that the first games, ideas, etc. of Ingress are based on programs and ideas he wrote, and his autobiography says so.

    And in the first tests he let Niantic and Google staff play it and got a good response.

    In 2012, Ingress was beta-launched.

  • tp235tp235 ✭✭✭✭

    @Perringaiden

    I did some research and found out that his autobiography was released in Japanese before the English version.

    It was released in Japan in November 2017.

    If it was released in your country, I would recommend it because it was very interesting and good and convincing.


    And it just so happens that Hanke recently gave an interview to the Japanese web media, including about the future.

    I'll recommend this one too, because it's a good interview article that's too good to keep only in Japanese.


  • Never trust an auto-biography. It's someone's interpretation of their own mythology.

    Regardless, he's always been the "How do we make this successful" part of the ideas equation, not the "Actually make it work as a game" part.

  • tp235tp235 ✭✭✭✭

    I at least support his idea, even if Ingress, which he originated, is just an idea.

    The idea of creating a game that can be played globally based on Google Maps, which he established as the foundation, is still crazy today.

  • MoogModularMoogModular ✭✭✭✭✭

    Only if the autobiography is ghost written.

    Bill Kilday's book about the start of Keyhole and Google Maps along with Niantic is fairly accurate. He also goes into detail about John Hanke. I doubt these are the people who would want their own story fabricated when they have already made an impact on GIS.

  • GrogyanGrogyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    Every article in the last sever years that has come out has specifically called out pokemon go. It is the Niantic Marketing departments' job to ensure Niantic games and products are fairly represented, unfortunately their marketing department is solely focused on one game. So it isn't surprising to see that there are layoffs. As there are less players year on year playing pokemon go.

    We don't hear anything much about Ingress, or Pikmin, and Peridot.

    Same went for Catan World Explorers, which I am still cannot believe that it wasn't released worldwide, yet it was well and truly ready for the masses for months.


    So in this regard, it is the marketing department that really needs to be laid off, and get new people in, with a clear reminder that every article that is written NEEDS to ensure EVERY Niantic game/app/product gets the same amount of press.

    Ingress is a great game, but it is limping along with very limited story and reason to keep battling. Sure the subscription goes some way to pay the basics, and is being under priced for what we get.


    Further evidence is the complete disregard of other games Community Days and Major events, as many players play more than one title. And physically unable to do both due to scheduling conflicts.

    Which again shows the incompetence of the Niantic Marketing department

  • spiesrspiesr ✭✭

    It's not the marketing department's to give each game "fair" attention. It's their job to present Niantic's products in whatever well is most likely to advance Niantic's interests.

    I'd wager the Niantic gets more revenue from the average Go player than the average Ingress player for example. Thus it would just make sense that they would rather a prospective player pick up Go instead of Ingress.

  • PkmnTrainerJPkmnTrainerJ ✭✭✭✭✭

    I can’t believe the Transformers team hasn’t yet officially announced closure. They shut off in-app purchases today but haven’t said anything.

  • mortuusmortuus ✭✭✭✭✭

    guess it will close off for good servers this month

  • MoogModularMoogModular ✭✭✭✭✭

    Sounds like tomorrow will be an official announcement

  • PkmnTrainerJPkmnTrainerJ ✭✭✭✭✭

    I’m just looking back at the HPWU closure notice which was announced on November 2 2021.

    Today we’re announcing that Harry Potter: Wizards Unite will officially close on January 31, 2022. The game will be removed from the App Store, Google Play and Galaxy Store on December 6, 2021, and players will no longer be able to make in-game purchases as of December 6, 2021.

    They gave a month after the announcement where players could still make in game purchases and provided nearly three whole months before shutting up for good. Maybe that’s a poor comparison though.

    Let’s look at Catan: World Explorers which announced it’s closure on September 17 2021

    CATAN – World Explorers will sunset on November 18th, 2021, 7am UTC. This means that the game will not be available to play any more after this date and all development on it will be halted. Later today, we will be taking the game down from the App Store and removing real-money purchases from the Shop. We want to have some final fun in our last few seasons; we plan on increasing bonuses to make the most of the remaining weeks! 

    In this one, they gave a month and cut off the in-app purchases right away. So I guess that’s more likely and then it allows any global releases of NBA All World, DarcARys and Peridot to shine.

  • SSSputnikSSSputnik ✭✭✭✭✭

    Catan had promise but was poorly implemented compared to the board game.

    Building roads between portals would have been awesome.

    Instead we got something rather dull with having to wait for endless dice animations etc.

    Real shame.

  • tp235tp235 ✭✭✭✭

    In case you are wondering, there is no official announcement from Niantic regarding Transformers.

    However, a journalist just wrote a report that Niantic has canceled the global launch of Transformers amid reports that Niantic has laid off about 8% of its staff.

    Niantic's new Malaysian launch on March 30 suggests that they were willing to continue.

    Also, considering that the first launch was in June 2021, we think Niantic is in discussions with Paramount, Hasbro, Takara Tomy, and others.

    Naturally, if either party breaks the contract, there would be penalties, etc., and considering the aforementioned launch situation, it is hard to believe that Niantic told them to cancel.


    My guess is that it is due to the postponement of the movie release.

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