US-based software developer Niantic became a global phenomenon when it released the augmented reality mobile game Pokémon GO in 2016. Since then, the company hasn't looked back - continually improving the experience and building upon its own IP, while acquiring new licenses to work with at the same time. To this day, GO continues to be a money-maker for the company, banking $80 million in the month of November.
If that's not impressive enough, The Wall Street Journal is reporting Niantic is now worth close to $4 billion. The company recently managed to raise $200 million via venture capital from GO. In contrast, last year it raised $200 million for a valuation of around $2.7 billion. This illustrates how investors still have faith in the mobile developer and the GO craze in general. In the US, the title is in the top 200 apps (according to downloads).
Earlier this month, Sensor Tower said GO's introduction of PvP multiplayer battles would result in "unprecedented" player spending. To put the company's value in perspective, this was Epic Game's amount in Spring. In saying this, the Fortnite creator is now worth around $15 billion.
[source polygon.com]
Comments 10
While I don't normally see people playing GO anymore, every Community Day, I see quite a few people walking around playing the game.
@Matthew010 My local Discord is pretty active!
I feel like I see that picture of James every week xd
Great, NOW can they hire some competent employees in Asia so that the next few community days aren't utter disasters like Cyndaquil and Beldum were?
For those of you not in Japan, both of those events saw the game break almost completely. In Beldum's case the event was cancelled entirely and rescheduled and in Cyndaquil's case it took them nearly 2 hours to get it working right again, and then they just extended the time. Both cases didn't fix any wasted items (like lures or lucky eggs unless you contacted them directly and had screenshots) and in both cases it didn't do anything for people who had made plans with friends and/or even traveled into big cities for the events.
Well, PvP has been a complete bust for me. Not only is actual competition scarce.. but item awards are ridiculously poorly handled. I've played one friend 20/30 times, they've won 8 Sinnoh Stones (most by losing) and I've got nothing.
I still love the game, but does seem like the RNG is weighted heavily for/against certain trainers.
4 Billion dollars, and yet no stock available because Niantic is privately owned. Good for them.
I like how Pokemon go keeps improving. I play for awhile. Stop. Come back to.the game. Hope they keep up the good work.
That picture never gets old.
It prints money...or whatever. -waves hand-
would these kind of profits encourage nintendo to abandon traditional portable consoles in the future? it sends a deadly predicament, it doesn't help with all the recent trademarks on their franchises recently for mobile.
i really don't want this to succeed but i think it's way too late for that with how much money it makes.
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