Niantic Layoffs 2023 – Why Is Niantic Laying Off Employees?
Are there Niantic layoffs in 2023? Niantic planned to make some organizational changes in the company. Layoffs are one of the major changes in those organizational changes. The company shut down its several games. It also closed its several locations, including Los Angeles Studio. Let’s stay in the loop to discover more about Niantic Layoffs.
The CEO of the company emailed. In an email, he wrote, “This layoff round is a part of organization changes. Moreover, we are closing the Los Angeles Studio. This move is to be taken to streamline our business. All these organizational changes are happening because we want to focus on another thing.”
Niantic, Inc., is an American-based software development company. Its headquarters is in San Francisco. In 2010… Niantic launched Niantic Labs as an Internal startup in collaboration with Google. The company is well known for its incredible reality of mobile games such as Pokemon Go and Ingress.
It is believed that the seventh birthday of Pokemon Go is near. It remains incredibly relevant. According to reports, the game (Pokemon Go) generated around 1 billion US dollars in revenue annually.
Although the game has earned a good amount, it still shut down several games. Niantic also shut down other games based on Harry Potter, Catan, and others. These were later attempts by the company to recapture lightning in a bottle. It is also a part of layoffs in June 2022. Several other companies, including:
- Microsoft closed Minecraft Earth.
- On June 30, the AR game in The Witcher Series was also shuttered by the CD Project Red. It is estimated the company announced this round of layoffs.
This move affected about 230 workers. Hanke said, “We are laying off. We are also forced to cease production on our Marvel game. The title of the Marvel game is, Marvel World of Heroes.” Niantic closed “NBA All World (NBA game)” also.
Yet, many games shuttered. Still, It augmented reality for the long term. Hanke added, “We believe in augmented reality as the factor for analyzing the future. We long awaited it.”
The company still believes and observes the reality devices, including:
Apple Vision Pro, Quest Pro, and Meta.
The company’s CEO stated, “We know this decision may hit hard. But it is an intermediate step to put our business on track. We believe it is a turning point to true outdoor AR devices.”
Niantic said, “Our priority is to keep our latest partner Pokemon Go healthy. Its growth is our priority. We want to build it as a forever game.” Still, the company invested in its AR platforms for its developers. It also promised to support and maintain other games, including:
Monster Hunter Now, Pikmin Bloom, and Peridot.
Hanke confirmed, “No improvements have been seen so far. The revenues we generated post-Covid are still the same as Pre-Covid. Revenue returned to pre-Covid levels. We had the latest projects in games and platforms, but no improvement has been seen. Investment went in vain as those platforms have not generated revenues.”
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Why Is Niantic Laying Off Employees?
When asked why Niantic is laying off its workforce, The CEO of the company answered through email. In an email, he wrote… “We are laying off our workforce. Do you know? Why? As it plays a pivotal role in the company’s organizational changes. We decided to make some organizational changes in the company. These changes are created to streamline our business. It helped us to narrow the company’s focus. Due to this, we can maintain and develop the company’s cash cow, Pokemon Go.”
Several other common and most probable reasons behind these layoffs include:
- Cited the Macroeconomic environment.
- A need to discover discipline on a zig-zag path to attain profitability.
- Common Script
- To grow their business, companies laid off employees.
- Overhiring
How Many Employees Does Niantic Have?
John Hanke launched the software company in 2010. It started as an internal startup with Google. Later, Google spins it off. When Ingress was introduced, Niantic had more than 30 employees.
According to reports, it is estimated the company has more than 800 of its employees. However, the laying-off series continues. The number of employees at Niantic also increases and decreases due to layoffs. Layoff is essential as it plays a crucial role in streamlining the company.
Will Niantic Go Public?
When it comes to whether Niantic is a publicly traded or privately traded company, the answer to this question is Niantic is a privately held company founded in 2010. After 5 years of its establishment, the company rebranded as a separate entity.
All in all, Niantic is a private company. There is no Pokemon Go stock. It is unclear whether the company will go public or not.
Why Did Google Spin Off Niantic – Is Layoff A Reason?
No, layoff does not affect this decision of Google. First and foremost, Niantic is not a platform, and it is just a game. Google spun off Niantic by saying now Niantic has become an independent company. So it can boost its growth independently. This way, we can make room for entertainment. In doing so, we closely align with investors and partners in the same industry.
Still, people bombarded many questions and asked why Google spin-off Niantic. Below, you can check the key reasons for Niantic’s split.
The major reason for Spinning off Niantic can be:
The company separated and collaborated with other Partners. The CEO of the company spoke out… “My operation seemed like a kind of bumping up against Google’s wish… to remain unaffected or neutral.”
Is Niantic A Good Company To Work For?
The overall rating of Niantic is 3.5 out of 5. It raised a question in everyone’s mind about whether Niantic is a good company to work at. So, we have anticipated the answer based on over 191 reviews left by its employees. A majority of employees are recommended to work at Niantic. Employees said it was a good experience.
While some do not recommend working at Niantic, it reported that the company’s rating has declined for the past year.
Are Layoffs Coming This Year?
However, the layoff has been a reckoning for the past few years. In 2022, techwide announced layoffs, and the series continues. In 2023, layoffs continued as companies had plans to lay off thousands of their tech employees. It reported the mass layoffs happened at major tech companies such as:
Amazon, Yahoo, Zoom, Google, Microsoft, and Meta. Every industry cuts jobs, whether it is from crypto or an enterprise SaaS.
It is estimated the total layoffs for 2023 is around 201,860. The total number of tech layoffs is currently exceeding as compared to the previous year.
How Many Layoffs have been done from the start of 2023 till now?
- In January, around 84,714 employees were laid off.
- In March, about 37,109 workers were laid off.
- In April, around 17,926 employees were laid off.
- In May, around 14,555 workers were laid off.
Below, we have shared a comprehensive list of a few companies that also announced layoffs this year:
- Plex laid off around 20 percent of its employees.
- Olx Group laid off around 800 jobs globally.
- Mojocare laid off 150 employees.
- Tada laid off at least 50 percent of its workers.
- Better.com also laid off its workforce.
- Spotify also reduced 2 percent of its workforce.
- Meta laid off around 21,000 employees.
- LinkedIn also laid off 3.6 percent of its workforce.
- Amazon cut 8 percent of its workforce.
- Salesforce cut down 10 percent of the workforce.
- Accenture cut 19,000 jobs.
- Microsoft laid off 559 workers.
- GitHub laid off around 3,000 of its workers.
- Zoom laid off 1,300 workers.
- PayPal cut at least 7 percent of its workforce.
- Microsoft laid off about 10,000 of its workers.
- Vimeo cut down 11 percent of its workers.
Which Companies Are Like Niantic?
An American technology executive named John Hanke founded Niantic, Inc. It is an American software company. Hanke is the founder and CEO of the company. He led Google’s Geo product division such as:
Google Maps, SketchUp, StreetView, Google Earth, and Panoramio.
Niantic spun out of the creator of Pokemon Go and Google. This is one of the best software companies nationwide.
However, the company downsizing its business and laying off its workforce in 2023. Still, Niantic stands alone among other competitor companies. Below are some of the leading Companies that are similar to Niantic. These can be great alternatives.
- Electronic Arts
- Nintendo
- Zynga
- Blizzard Entertainment
- Ubisoft
- Infinite Reality
- Stardust
- sMiles
- SuperWorld
- Artie
- Realm
- Unity
- ReSight
- Blippar
To Sum Up
We have concluded that The maker of Pokemon GO, Niantic, announced the second round of layoffs in June 2023. Over the past 12 months, the company laid off its workforce twice.
It makes Niantic the latest major U.S. company that conducted layoffs in 2023. Other companies include:
KPMG, Oracle, Uber, Spotify, Grubhub, and Robinhood also cut jobs this year.
Niantic announced laying off its workforce in 2023. It also shut down its games to shift its focus to Pokemon Go.
In June 2023, it reported Niantic laid off around 230 employees. On the other hand, It also announced laying off around 90 employees a year later.
Niantic spun out of Google and the creator of Pokemon Go. It formed its Niantic Labs in 2010. Niantic has other offices in Los Angeles and Bellevue.
It came out as an internal startup within Google. In later years, Google rebranded under another company, i.e., Alphabet Inc, in 2015. Niantic became an independent company.
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