Pokemon GO Developer Niantic Cuts 8% Of Workforce And Cancels Four Projects

It looks like Pokemon GO developer Niantic is facing some challenging times, based on recent reports.

According to Bloomberg, the company is cutting around 85 to 90 jobs – or 8% of its current workforce. Additionally, the company has cancelled 4 of its projects –  which include Heavy Metal (a Transformers game), Hamlet (a collaboration between Niantic and Punchdrunk), and two other projects called Blue Sky and Snowball.

This news emerges amid an internal email to staff, where Niantic Chief Executive Officer John Hanke shared that Niantic was “facing a time of economic turmoil” and has been “reducing costs in a variety of areas”, although it needed to “further streamline…operations in order to best position the company to weather any economic storms that may lie ahead.”

So far, Niantic has not really been able to recreate the viral success of Pokemon GO – which generated over $1 billion per year on average, to date. Harry Potter: Wizards Unite was shut down last year, and Pikmin Bloom has yet to gain significant momentum in the mobile market.

We’ll report back if we hear more in the future. Stay tuned.