SCOPELY, a company supported by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign background, has signed an agreement to buy Niantic’s Game Division, including Mobile Pokémon Go, for $ 3.5 billion.
The transaction also involves Niantic’s Pikmin Bloom and Monster Hunter games, as well as the development teams, according to a statement released on Wednesday (12), confirming a previous report from Bloomberg.
Niantic games encourage players to explore the real world to get rewards within the game. According to Scopely, Niantic’s Game Division generated more than $ 1 billion in revenue last year, with 30 million monthly active users. Although Pokémon Go was a huge success, many of the company’s other titles had difficulty winning players or closed.
SCOPELY has not acquired Niantic’s mapping technology unit, which will be led by the company’s CEO John Hanke under a new name: Niantic Spatial. Using players data, the company said it intends to develop mapping technology that “captures the world with a level of precision never before reached”, with applications in manufacturing, education, logistics, tourism and other areas.
Niantic Spatial received a $ 200 million financing from Niantic and another $ 50 million from Scopely. Niatic augmented reality games, such as ingress Prime and Peridot, will remain under the control of the spatial niantic.
Niantic was created as an Alphabet Inc. Spin-off, Google controller in 2015. Before leading Google’s geospatial division, Hanke worked in satellite mapping.
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Savvy Games Group, a subsidiary of Saudi PIF, bought Scopely two years ago for $ 4.9 billion. Savvy was created with a $ 38 billion fund to turn Saudi Arabia into a global video game hub.
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