Pokemon Go developer Niantic sells gaming business to Saudi Arabian group
Niantic, the developer of games such as '
What's Next for Niantic: A New Home for Niantic Games and the New Future of Niantic Spatial Inc. – Niantic Labs
https://nianticlabs.com/news/niantic-next-chapter?hl=ja
Why Scopely is teaming up with Niantic games
https://www.scopely.com/en/news/why-scopely-is-teaming-up-with-niantic-games
Saudi Arabia Buys Pokémon Go, and Probably All of Your Location Data
https://www.404media.co/saudi-arabia-buys-pokemon-go-and-probably-all-of-your-location-data/
According to a statement from Niantic, the company has decided to naturally split into two paths: to continue making 'geospatial games' set in the real world, and to further develop its augmented reality and geospatial computing businesses.
One of them is the team that develops games such as 'Pokemon Go,' 'Pikmin Bloom,' and ' Monster Hunter Now ,' and this will be sold to Scopely, a powerful player in the mobile games market, for $3.5 billion (about 520 billion yen).
Scopely is a wholly owned subsidiary of Savvy Games, a Saudi Arabian company owned by the Saudi Arabian government's Public Investment Fund, and is based in the United States. The sale will bring Scopely's portfolio of apps such as Pokémon GO, as well as game-related live events, the community app Campfire , which allows users to meet in real life to play games, and Niantic's map development program Wayfarer .
Another thing is that the geospatial computing business that Niantic has been working on since its inception will continue in a newly established company, Niantic Spatial Inc. Niantic Spatial Inc. will receive $200 million (approximately 30 billion yen) from Niantic and $50 million (approximately 7.4 billion yen) from Scopely, and Niantic's existing shareholders will be inherited as shareholders of Niantic Spatial Inc. In addition, AR games set in the real world such as Ingress Prime and Peridot will be operated by Niantic Spatial Inc.
Although the boards of directors of both companies have approved the sale, regulatory review has not yet been completed, and the transaction is expected to close in 2025. Niantic said, 'We look forward to sharing more information with you in the coming months as we move our games and platforms businesses into new futures.'
The teams behind
Technology media 404 Media points out that 'Scopely, Niantic, and Savvy Games have released a total of six separate blog posts, but none of them have clarified what will happen to the location data of 100 million Pokemon GO players.' The company argues that the change in management company could cause problems in managing user information that have never occurred before.
404 Media said, 'What we've seen is a vast, complex ecosystem previously controlled by a single US company now controlled by a much more complex ecosystem controlled by Scopely, a US company wholly owned by a conglomerate whose largest shareholder is the Saudi Arabian government. All of the games to be sold to Scopely require player location data and are monetized through location-targeted advertising. What happens to the data Scopely collects, how it is monetized, and how it may or may not flow to Savvy Games or the public investment fund remains very unclear.'
In response to this criticism, Scopely responded to 404 Media, saying, 'Protecting player privacy and data is of the utmost importance to both Scopely and Niantic. Player data has been and will continue to be handled in accordance with strict data privacy laws and regulations and is stored exclusively on U.S.-based servers. We have never sold any data to third parties, and we never will. In addition, Scopely will only use the precise location data shared by Niantic players for essential game operations purposes, such as anti-cheat and bug fixes. When location data is no longer needed for the game, it is completely removed from our systems.'
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