Pokémon Go developer Niantic might sell the video game division for roughly $3.5 billion

Released in July 2016, Pokémon Go has managed to exceed 147 million monthly active users by May 2018. Less than a year later, it managed to hit the one billion global downloads milestone. By 2020, this augmented reality hit has managed to bring Niantic, its publisher, no less than $6 billion in revenue. Now, it looks like it will soon change ownership, as Niantic is allegedly in talks with Saudi-owned Scopely to sell its video game division. The price? No less than $3.5 billion.

According to anonymous inside sources who are familiar with Niantic's inner workings and spoke to Bloomberg, the aforementioned negotiations are still ongoing. These sources claim that Pokémon Go will be included in the deal, without saying anything about Niantic's other (quite successful) augmented reality title, namely Ingress. Released in late 2013, Ingress reached the 20 million downloads milestone in November 2018. Once approved, the deal would be finally unveiled to the public. However, this will probably take a few weeks.

Scopely, the company that would acquire Niantic, was acquired by Savvy Games Group in April 2023 for $4.9 billion. Previously, Savvy Gaming Group had acquired ESL and FACEIT. Both deals were valued at $1.5 billion and were completed in 2022. The list of games published by Scopely includes Monopoly Go, The Walking Dead: Road to Survival, Marvel Strike Force, and more.

In addition to being available as a standalone game that uses a mobile phone's capabilities, Pokémon Go has also inspired Nintendo to create the Pokémon Go Plus+, which is a Bluetooth device that can be used to track sleep, but its primary goals are to spin PokéStops and throw Poké Balls automatically. It can be currently acquired from Amazon for $61.92.